


At The Beginning With You

by Schwoozie



Series: And Baby Makes Four [7]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Zombies, Back Seat, Blow Jobs, Dirty Talk, First Meetings, Friends to Lovers, Grinding, Hand Jobs, Male Slash, Masturbation, Multi, Mutual Masturbation, Older Man/Younger Woman, Picnics, Polyamory, Public Display of Affection, Relationship Negotiation, Resolved Sexual Tension, Rick Being an Asshole, Sexual Frustration, Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-04-18 23:29:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4724267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schwoozie/pseuds/Schwoozie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With a recently divorced wife, a distant best friend, and a roommate he has more-than-roommate feelings for, Rick Grimes is balancing his life on the blade of a knife. Meeting robbery victim Beth Greene might be just the thing to push him over the edge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The story of how Beth meets Rick and Daryl.
> 
> I'm really not sure how long this will be, but I'm enjoying writing it. We'll see how it goes.

Rick knows he should try harder to hide the yawn ripping out of his chest—Shane is his partner, after all, his best friend for most of his life—but after the day he's had, he can't quite find it in himself to care.

“Are you even listening to me, man?” Shane asks.

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Rick says, dragging himself straighter in his seat in the squad car. “You said Rachel's been nagging you—“

“ _Sheila_ , Rick, her name is _Sheila_.”

Rick frowns. “What happened to Rachel?”

“What happened to Ra–, there _is_ no fucking Rachel, jesus christ, Grimes, are you drunk on duty or something?”

Rick looks at Shane incredulously. “Do you _know_ me?”

Shane throws up his hands. “I dunno, man. The Rick I know doesn't fucking doze off when I'm telling him something important.”

Rick thunks his head back against his seat, closing his eyes. “I've had a bit of a bad day,” Rick mutters.

Shane pauses, and Rick knows he's working out whether to continue being angry or not.

Rick lets out an internal sigh of relief when he decides on _not._

“Lori again?”

Rick lets out a rough sigh. “It isn't her fault, just... lawyers. Fucking lawyers.”

“That sucks, man.” Shane drums on the steering wheel for a few moments, peering out through the windshield. “How's it living with Dixon?”

Rick feels a skip in his chest at Daryl's name, and turns to look out his own window so Shane doesn't see the smile trying to climb up his face.

“Fine,” Rick says, forcing his tone into nonchalance.

“You woken up with any dead animals in your bed yet?”

Rick rolls his eyes at that, turning to Shane with a scowl. “He isn't a _cat_ , Shane.”

“He's some sort of something,” Shane mutters. “I'll say it again, I got no problem you living with me, man.”

“Yeah, and listen to you fucking a different woman every five minutes? I'm fine where I am, thank you.”

“Least you might get a decent view in the morning,” Shane says.

Rick thinks about his own morning—stumbling from his bedroom to see Daryl padding out of the bathroom, towel barely clinging to his waist, looking somehow larger than he does with clothes on, muscles rippling beneath a sheen of moisture... and when his eyes met Rick's, the way he colored...

Rick looks out the window again to hide his own flushed cheeks. This damn... crush, this... _whatever_ it is he's feeling about his housemate—it's gotta stop. He knows that. He got divorced less than a year ago, has a newborn child and a rebellious teenager, and is stuck pulling nightshifts for the foreseeable future—he has enough to worry about without throwing Daryl Dixon into the mix.

He's about to suggest one of them makes a coffee run when the radio crackles to life.

“10-62E, code 1, suspect fled from premises,” the dispatcher says before rattling off an address nearby.

_A no to coffee, then._

Rick sighs. “Guess that's us.”

“Fuckin' home invasions,” Shane mutters, flicking on the lights while Rick responds to the dispatcher. “Least it's a college town. Good chances the victim's a cute chick.”

Rick rolls his eyes. “You wanna go for jailbait, be my guest. I'll spend those three minutes in the car.”

“Hah hah hah,” Shane says. “Keep an eye on the street signs, will you?”

Rick does as instructed, watching the streets roll by. The roads are empty, so they don’t bother with the siren—just cruise silently through the neighborhood, cutting red lights but at an otherwise leisurely pace. If the suspect's fled by the time the call is made, there isn't much the first responders can do beyond get the witness statements and forward them to the other uniforms. Sometimes Rick finds it's better to take longer to get there; gives the victim more time to pull themselves together, put the pieces in order in their mind.

“Should be just ahead on the left,” Rick says.

It's hard to tell on the dark side-street, but the house looks cute—painted light blue or green, two stories and divided into two sections. Rick's dealt with these kinds of residences before; he suspects each story houses a separate apartment, rather than one tenant occupying two floors.

He's so occupied examining the house that it takes him a moment to understand what Shane's saying.

“What the hell?” he mutters.

“What?” Rick asks.

“You don't see it?” Shane says. “There's someone on the porch.”

Rick squints through the windshield as their headlights fall on the house, and indeed, there is someone; a young woman, sitting with her knees to her chest on the top stair of the porch. She raises her arm to shield her eyes against the sudden light, and in her hand...

“Is that a _knife?”_ Shane asks.

“Looks like it's been used,” Rick says grimly, checking that his gun is secure on his hip. His instincts tell him that they have nothing to fear from this girl—even if she weren't five foot nothing and thin as a toothpick—but it never hurts to be safe.

Shane parks a few yards down the street. Rick waits for him to check his own holster and give Rick a nod before stepping from the car.

The girl is standing by the time they emerge, bloody knife held tight and ready in her right hand.

“Hey there, Miss,” Shane says, somehow injecting swagger into his slow stride. “How you doing tonight?”

The girl's mouth twists, and she shifts her shoulders warily. “Not so great,” she says.

“Sorry to hear that,” Shane says. “Even so, I'mma need you to put that knife down, alright?”

When Rick sees the girl's grip on the knife tighten, he knows they might have a problem.

He glances at Shane, and he knows his partner must have seen the movement too. His hand is drifting back towards his holster as he continues to approach. One look at the girl tells him she saw it too, and she brings the knife up just as Shane's hand closes on his gun.

“Whoa there,” Rick says, reaching out and grabbing Shane's arm. He feels Shane's incredulous gaze land on him, but he doesn't have time for that now—the girl is looking at him too, her eyes locking with his.

Now that they're closer, Rick can read more in her expression: fear, anger, exhaustion, and the rising hysteria that accompanies symptoms of shock. The arm holding the knife is trembling, but she doesn't drop it.

“My name's Rick,” Rick says, tightening his hold on Shane's arm before stepping in front of him. “This here's Shane. We got a call that there was a robbery at this address. Is that correct?” There's a long pause, and then the girl nods. “I'm sorry that happened to you,” Rick says, letting go of Shane and raising his hands in the air. “And we're gonna get to the bottom of it, I promise. But you gotta put the knife down first.” The girl glances at Shane. Her eyes harden at whatever he's doing and without thinking Rick takes another few steps forward, catching her eye again. “Hey,” he says. “Look at me. Just at me.” He waits until her gaze settles on him. He takes another step until he's almost within reaching distance. He holds out his hand. “You're gonna be ok.”

He's using techniques Daryl taught him the one time he took Rick hunting, the weekend Rick officially signed the divorce papers. Rick asked him what the best place to shoot was if they ran into a wolf or a bear, and Daryl had chuckled; said you don't kill the things that're hunting the same things you are. That to get away you gotta gentle it; tell it with your eyes and your tone that you want the same things.

He tries to imitate Daryl now—the steady way he is in the forest, his control and stillness and comfort in what he's doing and who he is.

He looks into the girl's wary wolf eyes and tells her that they're the same.

Her hold on the knife wobbles, wavers—and her shoulder relaxes, so she's holding it out instead of up.

Rick waits a moment for her to nod, and then he takes those final steps forward, going up the stairs until they're almost at eye level. She's pretty, he realizes; shockingly pretty, and while he had been calling her a girl in his head, this close he has to admit she looks more like a woman.

He pushes that thought away as he closes his hand around her wrist, sliding it down to fit his fingers through hers around the handle.

“Good girl,” he murmurs.

Her eyes widen still further as he takes the knife and steps down quickly, breaking eye contact at last to turn and slide the knife into Shane's open evidence tube.

* * *

She leads them inside after that.

There aren't any immediate signs of struggle. Aren't many signs of anything—it is very clearly a transient apartment, likely signed on a yearly lease; bare nails for hanging pictures litter pockmarked walls, and the carpet is spotted with burns, likely from neglected cigarettes. The only thing of value in sight is a TV, sitting at a crooked angle with its cords dangling. He suspects it had been hooked up to some sort of game console that the crook got away with.

She doesn't seem to know what to do once they're in the room together, and stands in the corner hugging herself while Shane and Rick look around. Rick can feel his partner's irritation. Shane's the senior officer, after all, and Rick had usurped his authority pretty spectacularly. But Rick knows Shane, and after spending so much time with Daryl, he knew the look in the girl's eyes—she wasn't about to fall for Shane's brand of placation any day of the week.

Shane might be pissed, but he's also a professional; and as they stand in the living room with its burned carpet and bare walls, Rick feels the authority in the room shifting his way.

“Is there somewhere we can sit down?” he asks.

The girl nods, and leads them into the kitchen. Rick's eyes zero in on the bloodstain on the tile floor; on its way to drying, but still a sizable amount of blood. The girl is very decidedly not looking at it; she elects instead to collapse into a seat at the two-person kitchen table, resting her head in her hands and rubbing her forehead.

Rick glances at Shane, who rolls his eyes before heading outside to grab the camera and forensic kit.

Rick waits for the door to click shut before turning to the young woman. He doesn't think she's crying, but he also doesn't think it would take much to get her there.

“What's your name?” he asks softly.

“Beth,” she says, voice dull, distracted. She glances up at him. “You can sit, you know.”

He nods, lowering himself into the seat carefully. For a few moments he just watches her. She's even prettier in the light, he realizes—the kitchen is lit by one shitty bulb, but every beam it sends out seems drawn straight to her. It's like her skin has some sort of bioluminescence, a natural glow that illuminates everything around it.

It seems dampened now, in her trauma. He can't imagine how bright she normally shines.

“You live here alone?” he asks.

“Not technically,” she says. “My roommate spends most of her time at her boyfriend's, though. She's over there now.”

“You got a boyfriend?” Her eyes flick to his. A dread fills his chest as he realizes how that must sound; realizes that the way it sounds isn't far enough from the truth to remain comfortable. “Someone to call?” he adds in a rough voice.

She shakes her head. “No one's around,” she says. “My dad and sister are at a wedding in California. I stayed cause I have finals.”

“What are you studying?”

“Medicine,” she says. Her eyes drift towards the bloodstain on the floor, before returning to her hands on the table. Her nails are painted a rose-pink color; chipped like she hasn't had the time to touch them up in a while.

“How many years you been in school?”

This time, when she looks at him, he swears he sees a flicker of amusement in her eyes.

“How old am I, you mean?”

He freezes, blinking at her. She doesn't break his gaze. “Well... yeah, guess so.”

“I just started. I'm 19,” she says, looking at him through doe eyes that make her look four years younger than that. Rick feels a strange crawling beneath his skin, like something's worming its way through his pores. He clears his throat.

“Don't need a parent present, then. That's fine.” He clears his throat again, looking around the kitchen. “You said your dad and sister. Where's your mom?”

“Dead,” she says. Her tone is so flat it takes Rick a moment to comprehend her meaning.

“I'm sorry.”

She shrugs, affectless. “It happens.”

“It doesn't.”

And she's looking in his eyes again, but they aren't doe-like now. They're sharp as knives.

“You believe in God, then? Everything happens for a reason?”

Rick can't stop the snort that bursts out of him. “No. Not exactly.”

“Why'd you say that then?”

“I said it...” Rick trails off, thinking. “I lost my mom a few years ago,” he says finally. “I know it ain't the same as losing her when you're your age, but... a concert happens. A graduation happens. Losing someone doesn't just 'happen.' It's more than that.”

“You've thought about this a lot, Officer...?”

“Grimes,” Rick says, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “Rick Grimes.”

“Officer Grimes,” she says, like she's rolling the name around on her tongue, trying it out. It does something to Rick, hearing that combination of sounds in her mouth. “You've thought about this, then?”

“Get a lot of murder cases. Grieving families.” He stares at her a moment, then nods his head towards her. “Even cases like this. Home robbery. You lose something here too.”

“What, an Xbox?”

“Peace of mind.” She goes quiet, blinking slowly. Rick realizes that she isn't avoiding his gaze anymore. “Home's supposed to be safe. Somewhere bad things can't touch you.”

“My mama died in the bed she gave birth to me in,” Beth says. “It's been a long time since home was like that for me.”

Rick thinks about home; and as ever, the first image that comes to mind is Lori. Lori, spread out before him on their prom night, after their wedding, the hundreds of times after that when they made love or simply shared a bed. The life they brought into the world, their own boy. The second life they didn't mean to make, that they made as it was all falling apart. The fights, the screaming, the nights spent on the couch or alone in the bed after Lori fled to her mother's. Being glad to go to work in the morning because at least it gets him out of that house, away from her judgmental looks and and glares and Rick's own knowledge that most of her judgement is sound.

Boxes, tape, bubble wrap. Loading it all into Daryl's truck and driving away.

Lawyers, paperwork, more fights. Being _allowed_ to see his kids. His whole life, his whole world, shrunk down to weekends.

“Yeah,” he says, sinking into her softening eyes, “Ain't been like that for me either.”

She's just opening her mouth to reply when the front door swings open.

“We're outta fingerprint kits, I called Williams to send over some fresh ones,” Shane says, voice loud and brash as it disturbs the still air of the apartment. If he notices the now-strained silence he doesn't acknowledge it; just dumps the forensic materials on the living room couch before heading into the kitchen to begin photographing.

Rick clears his throat and pulls his notebook out of his breast pocket, avoiding Beth's gaze as he flips through it, more as something to do as he clears his thoughts than for any real purpose. He should have had this out the moment they sat down.

“Alright, Beth,” he says stiffly, glancing at her blank expression. “Why don't you start at the beginning...”

* * *

Rick wakes around noon, bleary-eyed and confused as he looks at the closed bedroom door he is sure he left open the night before.

The sounds he hears filtering in from the kitchen explain it—the clang of dishes, muffled curses to accompany them. A smile flits across Rick's face as he listens. Daryl is quiet as a mouse everywhere but in the kitchen, a fact he is eternally self conscious about but which Rick can't help but find endearing. Rick listens until a cheek-splitting yawn bursts from his chest and the need for coffee grows overwhelming.

Rick doesn't bother putting on pants; just walks out in his grey tee and matching boxer briefs, scrubbing at the beard he's growing in defiance of Lori's well-documented hatred of it. Daryl doesn't give a shit about his facial hair; his own goatee is scruffy and overgrown when he turns from the stove to look at Rick, eyebrows low on his serious face.

“Mornin',” Rick says, suppressing another yawn.

“Ain't exactly morning no more,” Daryl says. Rick flips him off as he goes into the fridge, fishing for the milk. When he emerges, Daryl is still watching him. “Didn't mean to wake you.”

“You didn't,” Rick says. “Got a lot on my mind.”

“Like what?”

Rick glances at Daryl as he goes for the coffee pot—which, he realizes with gratitude, Daryl has already filled.

“Met a girl last night,” Rick says. He heads off Daryl's raised eyebrows. “Don't give me that, it was all professional. She came home to her apartment being robbed. Ran into the kitchen and fought him off with a fucking vegetable knife. Acted like she could take me and Shane on with it too.”

Daryl's expression darkens as it usually does at the mention of Shane, but thankfully he doesn't comment.

“She alright, then?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.” Rick rubs his forehead as he fills his mug. “She insisted on staying in her apartment. Said her whole family was away and she didn't have anywhere else to go.”

“Didn't want to go to the station or anything?”

“No. Said she preferred her own bed.” Rick replaces the coffee pot and stares into his mug. He can still feel Daryl looking at him, and although he doesn't want to reveal the next part, he feels the words being drawn out of him. “Gave her our address,” he says, not looking at Daryl. “In case she needs someone.”

Daryl is quiet for a long time, long enough that Rick begins to grow nervous. He knows that Daryl isn't Shane—isn't quick to judge or mock—but he still doesn't know himself if this was the right thing to do. He justifies it by telling himself it's his job to serve and protect; he might be going above the call of duty, but not beyond it.

But then he remembers her luminous blue eyes, following him warily as he approached the porch, warming up slowly as they talked. He remembers her smooth skin, the youth of her face; her small hands, their nails painted with light pink polish. He remembers the regret in her gaze when Shane reentered the apartment, and he remembers the gratitude in them when Rick gave her that slip of paper. The hope that must have shone in Rick's own that she would use it.

Daryl doesn't ridicule him, though; he just shrugs and turns back to his eggs.

“Long as she don't get handsy with the knives again,” he says.

Rick snorts out a chuckle and leans his forehead on the cabinet, hoping to ease the pressure in his aching head.

“What about you? Meet any girls recently?”

Daryl snorts. “I meet a girl the entire time you've known me?”

“You and Carol seem pretty close.”

Rick can practically hear Daryl roll his eyes. “It ain't like that,” he grumbles, sliding his eggs onto a plate and heading for the kitchen table.

“Could be,” Rick says, moving to turn off the stove behind him. “She seems mighty attached to you.”

Daryl doesn't even dignify that with a reply, choosing to dig into his eggs.

Rick watches him for a moment, then asks, voice only wavering the smallest bit, “Ever get lonely?”

Daryl pauses mid-bite, looking up at Rick with raised eyebrows.

“Do you?”

Rick barks out a laugh, sipping his coffee and shaking his head. “Christ. Least we got each other, huh?”

Daryl once again declines to reply.

But he doesn't move his eyes from Rick until Rick leaves the kitchen either.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick's life continues to get more complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Mary :)
> 
> Warning for brief internalized homophobia, blood, and what could be construed as self harm.

It's been a long time since he was so glad to hear Lori's car in the driveway.

Rick watches from the couch as she sweeps in, looking exhausted and beautiful in her dress shirt and pressed skirt. Her makeup isn't as smudged as it should be after an overnight shift; she must have touched it up recently. He spends a moment entertaining the possibility that she would have done that for him—and laughs at himself, shaking his head until Judith begins to stir and he freezes, heart thundering in his ears.

Lori must have heard the chuckle, though, for when he looks up she's looking at him, her face twisted into something like confusion.

“You aren't asleep? It's 5am.”

“Judith wouldn't go down,” Rick says, wincing again as she whimpers, clutching at his shoulder. “I don't know if you want to–“

“I'm going to shower first, I feel disgusting,” she says.

“You look beautiful.”

Rick chastises himself as soon as he says it; feels familiar licks of anger when he sees the pity in her reaction.

“Rick–“

“That wasn't a come-on, I–, you know what, forget it.” Judith is whimpering in earnest now, and he stands, avoiding Lori's gaze. “I'm going to get her bottle.”

“I can take her–“

“No, you shower,” Rick says.

“Are you sure–”

“I can feed my daughter,” Rick snaps. Lori's mouth closes to a thin line.

Rick almost feels guilty.

He leans against the kitchen counter as he gives Judith her bottle, sighing heavily and wishing he had a hand free to scrub across his face.

He never expects these visitations to be anything less than a disaster, but somehow they always surprise him with their brutality. Carl's face hardening as soon as he sees Rick's car in the school lot. Going straight to his room when they get home, only emerging for five minutes to scarf down his dinner before disappearing again. Judith wailing and whimpering through it all, heading off any attempts Rick could even think of to get his boy to talk to him.

 _It's the damn TV Lori bought him when I moved out,_ he thinks. _No reason to come out of that damn room, especially not when I'm here._

It doesn't matter that Lori says Carl's just as angry at her, although the sadistic part of Rick hopes it's true. Hopes Lori's getting exactly what she asked for, the day she cheated on him with some unnamed stranger.

 _Not like I'm blameless,_ part of Rick's mind whispers. _I was more married to the job than to her, and Daryl..._

Daryl wasn't anything. It didn't mean anything, that he laughed, really laughed, for the first time in months the night he moved out, sitting on the floor of Daryl's apartment, three empty bottles of tequila between them. It didn't mean anything, the flush that Rick found on Daryl's cheeks when Rick finally calmed, the way their eyes held. Didn't matter how Daryl hightailed it right afterwards, how they haven't gotten smashed together since then.

They got drunk together a few times, before Rick and Lori's end. When things were bad, even if Rick didn't know exactly how bad. Daryl took Rick to the kinds of bars he'd only been to on the job—seedy joints filled with suspicious stains and rough characters, all of them catching Rick's cop-walk in a moment.

 _Don't you worry none, Officer; I'll protect you_. That's what Daryl said, when he saw Rick looking around warily. And he nearly cried, then, in the middle of that fucking backwoods bar, just because this man was there for him when his wife was drifting away.

Rick wonders sometimes where Shane was, during all this. Why the distance that increased between Rick and Lori seemed to mirror itself between Rick and Shane. Why he grew away from those he'd loved his whole life, grew closer to this redneck drifter who wandered into the station one day, every cent he owned in the world clutched in a paper bag, ready to bail out his brother.

 _Isn't a drifter anymore_ , Rick thinks, watching absently as Judith drains her bottle. _Got an apartment, a job. Doesn't talk to his brother. He's viable_.

Viable for what, Rick doesn't know. Rick doesn't know.

“I can take her now.”

Rick looks up. Lori's standing there, fresh from the shower, long hair wet and brushed carefully back from her face. She's in the robe Rick bought her for her 30th birthday—green, kimono style.

He remembers the first time she wore it. Remembers unwrapping her like a present while she laughed under him, moaned when his hand found her sweet spot. Rick wouldn't call himself the best lover, but he knows he was a good one. He treated his wife right, at least in the bedroom.

In the end, it was getting there that became the problem.

He hands Judith over silently, not quite meeting Lori's eyes as she adjusts to the squirming baby's weight.

“You don't have work today, do you?”

Rick shakes his head. “Not till tonight.”

“Good. I'm sorry you couldn't get any sleep.”

Rick shrugs, pushing off the counter. “Used to it.”

Lori trails him to the door, soothing Judith absently as the baby continues to fuss.

“Things at work are good?” she asks. “With Shane?”

Rick looks at her, hand on the doorknob, frowning. “Why wouldn't they be?”

“No reason. Just making conversation.” Lori shifts Judith in her arms, looking at the floor between them. “Want me to wake up Carl, get him to say goodbye?”

Rick snorts. “Let the boy sleep. He won't miss me.”

“That isn't true,” Lori says softly. “He misses you. That's why he's... the way he is.”

“Well. Nothing we can do about that, huh.”

Lori's look hardens a little, but she doesn't say anything. Just sighs and brushes Judith's hair away from her face.

“Just tell him I'll see him next weekend, alright?”

“Alright.”

Rick wonders for a moment if he should kiss her cheek. Play, at least, at being congenial exes, at remaining friends. But Lori is avoiding his gaze. Angling her body away from him. Biting back a yawn that would stretch her crows feet into claws.

She wants to sleep. He can't blame her.

He nods at her, and leaves. There's nothing left to say. Even goodbye would feel like overkill.

* * *

Rick is weary enough, ornery and bleary-eyed enough, that he is almost past the sofa before he notices her.

She's lying on the couch, curled in on herself, arms holding tight to the throw pillow beneath her head. Her hair is tousled and frizzy, like she got caught out in the rain. Resting across her is a poncho he recognizes as Daryl's—more like a saddle blanket than anything, although the man seems attached to it.

Rick thinks he might understand the appeal, now that he's seen it wrapped around Beth Greene.

He stands there for several minutes, just staring at her and blinking. It's been a week or two since he met her. There's been no success in finding the man who robbed her apartment. He heard through the grapevine that her family is back from California, but she's refused to move in with them; prefers to stay in her own place, no matter how unsafe it must make her feel.

And now she's here. Sleeping like a child on Rick's couch, a second-hand shit-pile he and Daryl dragged off the street. The fabric is darkened and stained and only makes her hair and skin more radiant.

Rick walks to Daryl's room and knocks on the door.

He takes the muffled grunt he hears from inside as consent and pushes through. Daryl's lying on his back, squinting at Rick through eyes heavy and bleary. He didn't get much sleep either.

Daryl's never exhibited any interest in women. Not much in men either, no matter how Rick's ego sometimes attempts to prove that wrong. But still, Rick wonders what happened here last night, to make the man so sluggish.

“Wassit?” Daryl asks, blinking rapidly as he tries to keep his eyes open.

Rick glances behind himself and closes the door.

“I don't know if you noticed,” Rick says, “but we have a girl sleeping on our sofa.”

Daryl's eyes flicker, and Rick feels his cop instinct spark to life.

“Yeah,” Daryl rumbles. “Came round midnight, crying and shit. Said she had a nightmare, ran all the way here.”

Rick blinks. “From her apartment?” he says. “That's three miles.”

Daryl shrugs. “Said she knew you.”

“Yeah, that's Beth–“

“She told me.” Daryl seems marginally more awake by now; at least, awake enough for his gaze to lance through Rick like a katana. “Didn't think she'd actually keep the address, huh?”

“No,” Rick says. “So what... what did you do?”

Daryl snorts, looking away. “Watched some McConaughey shit. She fell asleep halfway through. Figured there was no reason to kick her out.”

“No. No, there wasn't. You did good, Daryl.”

Daryl shrugs, chewing on his thumbnail. “Wasn't about to put her on the street.” He glances at Rick. “You gotta do something–“

He's cut off by a thunk and a squeak from the living room. Rick and Daryl glance at each other, and they both go to investigate.

They find Beth standing with the poncho draped around her shoulders, bent over the coffee table and holding her shin.

“Jiminy crispies son of a cracker _ow_ ,” she mutters. She hops on one foot for a few moments before falling back to the couch, wincing when it creaks loudly. She sighs, continuing to rub her leg, staring into space.

Rick glances at Daryl, and glances again.

There's a look on the man's face that Rick's never seen before. Not in bars, not on the street, not when watching movies or talking about their past experiences.

He looks interested.

He looks _enraptured._

Rick doesn't think he himself looks much different.

He decides to put that away to deal with a long, long time from now.

Meanwhile, a college freshman is sitting on his couch with a bruised shin, being watched unawares by two grown men.

Rick glances at Daryl again, then clears his throat as gently as he can.

Gentleness doesn't seem to help, though, as Beth whips around, nearly dislodging the blanket from her shoulders.

“Oh!” she exclaims, looking between them with darting eyes.

And Rick finds it hard to speak. Because even with eyes still puffy from crying and a crust of dried drool pooling on one cheek, she's probably the most lovely thing he's ever seen.

And from the way the normally stoic Daryl shifts against him, he suspects he thinks so too.

He doesn't know what Beth thinks. She's still looking between them, wide eyed, likely waiting for one of them to break the silence. They are the adults, after all.

Even if Rick's feeling far more like his high school self talking to a girl for the first time.

“You sleep ok?”

They all seem shocked, Daryl included, that Daryl is the first to speak. Their eyes fall on him and he takes a step back, practically hiding behind Rick as Beth continues to look the two of them over.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did, thank you,” she says. She's blushing intensely, looking between them with something like nerves, and Rick is taken aback by how different she is from the traumatized girl he met two weeks ago. She seems almost like a normal teenager.

And that shouldn't make something heat up behind his ears. It shouldn't.

“Want, uh, eggs or something?” Daryl mutters, barely audible even to Rick's ears.

But Beth seems to hear him, for in an instant, out of her disorientation rises a smile. Not one of the small, sad curves she offered Rick on that night, but a real, full smile that stretches her face and flushes her cheeks. Rick feels his own face heat further under its light.

“That would be amazing,” she says. “Thank you.”

Daryl mutters something unintelligible, glances at Rick, and hightails it to the kitchen.

And Rick is alone with her.

Her smile fades to a mere curve of her lips, and she ducks her chin, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Rick realizes that he's still standing here staring, so he jerks, clearing his throat again before moving forward.

He sits in the armchair across from her without a word, and suddenly all the exhaustion he had been feeling before he saw her on the couch comes flooding back. He sighs, closing his eyes and rubbing his eyes.

“Hard night?” Beth asks.

“Not so great.” Beth giggles, and Rick realizes he's just repeated hers and Shane's exchange from that first night. His lips twitch and he leans forward, scrubbing both hands across his face. “No, it was fine, just… ex-wife,” he says. “She needed me to babysit, and it... well, that says it all, doesn't it?”

Beth tilts her head, looking at him through wide eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Babysitting my own kids,” he says, snorting and shaking his head. “You know she tried to pay me last time?” he says. “Like I was some goddamned teenager saving up for a prom dress.”

“I'm sorry.”

“No, it's...” Rick shakes his head, hanging his head. He sighs. “I'm sorry. That was inappropriate.”

“I don't think so,” Beth says. One side of her mouth slides up. “You already asked to see my underwear. Can't get worse than that.”

Rick gapes at her, about to ask—and then he remembers. They'd gone through the apartment to see if the robber took anything else, and the panties... they had to rule out the sexual threat. They had to.

It wasn't anything risque, anyway. A lot of cotton, cat print. One pair with a lace trim. Her bras were just as plain, simple cotton in different colors, some with polkadots. There was one pretty one in pale pink; she's wearing a light colored shirt, it isn't crazy to assume that's the one she's has on now...

Rick hunches further forward, thinking desperately of the time his mother burned beans and stunk up the house for a week, of murder victims, of waking up with Shane's feet in his face.

Anything. Anything but Beth Greene in a pretty pink bra.

“Don't remind me,” he mutters, closing his eyes. He hopes he doesn't sound as desperate to her as he does to himself.

She doesn't say anything for a long time and he peeks through his lids cautiously. She stares at him, cheeks flushed enough to make her look like she has a sunburn. As he watches, a tiny tongue darts out to wet her lips.

“Ok,” she says. “I won't.”

They're saved, then, by Daryl thumping in, the typically graceful man unusually loud as he maneuvers three plates to the coffee table. He hands Beth the largest portion and is about to sit himself down when he freezes. Rick realizes that the couch, next to Beth, is the only open seat.

Daryl looks about ready to bolt when Beth pats the sofa beside her with a smile. “I don't have rabies, you know,” she says. “Might smell like wet dog at this point, but no rabies.”

Daryl looks at Rick, flushed and worrying his lip, before sitting down, making himself as small as possible as he presses against the arm of the couch.

If Beth notices his discomfort, she doesn't mention it; just pulls the plate into her lap and stuffs a gigantic forkful into her mouth.

“Mmhm,” she groans, making both Rick and Daryl twitch. “That's frigging amazing, Daryl, thank you.”

“Don't mention it,” Daryl mutters, burying his face in his own eggs.

“So how long've y'all lived together?”

“A while,” Rick says. He glances at Daryl, who steadfastly ignores him, shoveling food into his mouth as quickly as possible. “Friends for a while before that.”

“That's nice,” Beth says earnestly. “It's good to like who you live with, huh?”

Daryl glances up at Rick, and before Rick can look away their eyes catch. Hold. Burn.

And Rick thinks about what it's like to live with him. So surrounded by his scent that it's impossible to escape; that even though they live in separate rooms, he walks around smelling like Daryl and he suspects Daryl smells like him. Thinks about the thin wall between their rooms; how Rick wouldn't live with a womanizer like Shane for the world, but he pushed his bed across the floor just so he could listen to Daryl jerk himself off. He doesn't touch himself every time it happens, but he does it enough, and when he does he doesn't try as hard as he should to keep it quiet; moans like a fucking whore, sometimes, and he knows that if he can hear Daryl's quiet grunts, Daryl can hear him.

Daryl never mentions it, though. Never asks him what these joint sessions mean. Acts as if he doesn't even know they happen.

He knows. Just like he knows so many things about Rick, things he's told no one else. How he grew up wanting to be a pastor, not a cop like his old man. How he loved so much about Lori, and still does, and always will. How his first kiss was with Simon Lawson in the sixth grade after they got drunk on the baseball field.

Daryl is far more private. Rick knows little more than what he has surmised—Daryl was hurt as a child, hurt badly. He takes his coffee straight black, but prefers tea, although he'd never admit it. He's ashamed of his past, where he comes from, who he is. He rarely shows romantic or sexual interest at all, save with his own hand. He isn't a virgin, but Rick suspects, given what Daryl has said about his past encounters, that he might like to be.

Rick doesn't know much about Daryl. But the way he's looking at Beth—at her makeup smudged from sleep, her blue eyes flying between the two men, giving them equal attention, equal weight; at her delicate hands fluttering around her face as she speaks, toying with her hair or pushing it behind her ear or scratching her cheek—well.

Rick suspects he's just learned something new.

* * *

After she leaves, Rick and Daryl sit in silence.

There have been many silences between them in the years they've known each other. The silence of a shared beer, a movie, the starts and stops of a long drive. The silence of awkwardness, of irritation, of surprise. The silence of knowing each other so well that words become unnecessary.

They sit in silence, and it is one that Rick has never encountered before.

This is not something they can discuss through eyes alone. This is not something to be swept under the rug and forgotten.

One of them is going to have to speak. And if Rick knows anything, he knows it isn't going to be Daryl.

He's surprised Daryl is even still here.

“So,” Rick says. Daryl doesn't look up from where he's staring at his hands. Rick laughs nervously, rubbing at his forehead. “That's the girl.”

“That's the girl,” Daryl mumbles.

Rick can't help but be impressed he got a sound out of Daryl at all. It gives him the courage to keep going.

“What do you think?”

Daryl looks at him. Barely, from behind his hair. But he looks.

“Dunno,” Daryl says. His hands are twining together, tying themselves into knots as he blinks at Rick and then away. “I feel... I don't...”

“You want her?” Daryl flushes crimson at Rick's gentle coaxing, hiding his face again. “It's ok if you do. Don't have a claim on her or anything.”

“That ain't...”

Daryl trails off, bringing a nail to his mouth, worrying it. Rick sees a fleck of blood well up on his thumb, and Rick almost reaches over to pull it away. He settles for leaning forward, clasping his hands between his knees.

“She likes you,” Rick says. “I can tell she likes you.”

“Why the fuck're you pushing this?” Daryl asks, finally looking Rick in the eye, gaze an attempt at cutting. “Wanna see me all squared away, huh? Get me a girl so I don't look so fucking queer?”

Rick frowns, low and deep. “I don't think–“

“I ain't queer,” Daryl says. He holds Rick's gaze a moment. Looks away. Chews on his finger. “Ain't.”

“I wasn't saying that,” Rick says slowly. “Just wanted you to know, whatever you're feeling is alright.” Daryl snorts, chewing harder. “Ain't like she's a minor—c'mon, Daryl, quit it.”

He reaches out and grabs Daryl's wrist, dragging it away from his mouth.

Daryl jerks like he wants to flee, but stays in place, blood on his lips as he stares at where Rick holds his arm. A well of red is building on his thumb, rolling away from where a chunk of flesh had been gnawed away.

“Jesus,” Rick says.

Daryl's staring like he can't believe it either. He raises his other hand and wipes at his mouth, looks blankly at the stain left behind.

“Wasn't even thinking.”

“No.” Rick scoots further out in the armchair so he can hold Daryl with both hands, turn him to examine the wound. He wipes at the blood with his thumb so he can see better, and Daryl lets out a low hiss. “Sorry,” he says.

“S'alright,” says Daryl.

There's something about his voice—low, growly, barely a rumble—that makes Rick think there's something going on in this room. Something they can't come back from.

He shifts in his seat. He's hard, but he's leaning low enough that Daryl shouldn't be able to see it. His stomach brushes his erection and he clenches his abs, barely holding in a moan.

“Should clean it,” Rick says.

Daryl looks him in the eye. Rick feels it like a punch.

“So fucking clean it.”

He brings Daryl's thumb to his mouth.

Rick wasn't thinking. He still isn't thinking, not with the feeling of Daryl thick and warm inside him; his taste exploding on his tongue, dripping in copper and the salt of his sweat. He settles inside Rick's mouth and Rick draws a breath in through his nose as his eyes flutter, hands clench around Daryl's wrist, dig into his palm. He closes his teeth lightly, so lightly on Daryl's finger, laves his tongue against the wound. He looks at Daryl's stunned face and his erection throbs.

Daryl rips his hand away so suddenly that Rick's teeth catch on a stray piece of flesh, dragging it from the finger to lie in a pool of blood on his tongue. He blinks in his daze as Daryl stumbles to his feet, swaying for a moment, dangerously.

But he doesn't look dangerous. Not to Rick, not like Rick expects him to look.

He looks dangerous to himself.

“Don't... don't fucking...”

Daryl sputters off, hand still held out, almost pointing at where Rick is literally clutching empty air.

“Daryl–“ Rick says.

Daryl shakes his head, pulls his hand suddenly close to his body, sticks his thumb in his own mouth, sucks the blood off with a distracted _pop_. Rick does groan this time, soft but audible, and Daryl flings his hand away from himself as if it's bitten him.

“Ain't me,” he says, backing away, tripping against the couch. “None'a this. Ain't fucking me.”

“Wait–“

But he's gone; and Rick's call, his outstretched hand, are far too weak to bring him back.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Home is empty, work is exhausting, and Rick is tired of fighting with the wind. Might be time to go with it instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Mary, and thanks to everyone who has been reviewing!

Rick yawns into his fist as he fishes through his pants pocket for his car keys, wondering if he ought to grab a coffee just so he's awake enough for the drive home to bed. He decides against it, though, grimacing as he finally finds his keys and remembers what awaits him at home.

Silence. Emptiness.

Basically the final year of his marriage all over again.

He supposes he ought to have expected it. He knows Daryl, after all; he knows he's far more flight than fight, how hard the man runs when he feels threatened. Physical threats looking to cause him pain, he can handle. Rick expects he's been handling that his whole life.

Feeling attraction to a girl half his age, though. Having his thumb fellated by another man. Those aren't threats that Daryl is wired to face.

Finally in his car, Rick starts the engine by rote. The parking lot is packed—a common occurrence at three in the afternoon, and christ does Rick have to start pulling shifts at more regular hours—and it does take some cognitive ability to navigate the cars. Nonetheless, even if an elephant were to trundle into his path, he isn't sure he would be able to avoid hitting it.

It's hard sometimes to have such a smart man as a roommate, and doubly hard when said roommate feels... well, Rick doesn't know what Daryl feels. Disgust, probably. Confusion. Anger at Rick for fucking up what they had, anger at Beth for flipping whatever switch had been turned off inside of him.

Whatever he feels—he's avoiding Rick. And doing it deftly; it's like he's in Rick's head, he knows his sleep cycle so well. Rick has tried everything—saying up late, waking up early, even fucking sitting in the dark so Daryl couldn't tell he was up from the street. But it's no use. Daryl continues to evade him, and Rick isn't altogether sure he's ready for the confrontation that would occur if he wasn't.

Rick doesn't know what he wants. And that's the whole goddamn problem, isn't it: He wanted something from Lori, wants things from Daryl—hell, from Beth too. It isn't like she's been far from his mind either, especially not since yesterday afternoon, when a patrol unit nabbed the robber attempting to get treatment for the inflamed knife slash in his side. Rick was one of the first to hear the news, and he almost called her. Wanted to, not even to talk her into anything, just... to hear her voice. Speak with her. Maybe unburden some of the bullshit he's been piling higher and higher on top of himself.

She'd be the person for it. Seems like the kind of girl'd own a pretty hefty shovel.

He didn't do it. Had Shane call her instead, begging busy with paperwork and ignoring the suspicious looks Shane shot his way. Once upon a time he would have crumpled under that look; would have spilled the beans about everything, seeking his partner's acceptance, his forgiveness like he's Rick's personal priest.

But Rick could give a fuck what Shane thinks at this point. He'd tried to talk to him about Daryl—he's Rick's oldest friend after all, supposed to be his closest—but Shane had derailed the conversation immediately, asking the weirdest fucking things about Lori; if she plans to move, whether she's dating anyone or not. Rick didn't blow up at Shane for it—reminding him of his ex-wife on top of all the shit he has to worry about—but it was a near thing. A near fucking thing.

Rick idles at the mouth of the parking lot, checking both ways before easing onto the road, packed with parents on their way to pick their kids up from school. Lori's probably at the middle school now; Judith in the back seat, Carl settling sullenly beside her while he glowers at the empty passenger seat. That's one more thing he and Lori never agreed on; she'd read some study said airbags aren't safe for kids till they're fourteen. Rick, for one, thinks that's bullshit—he's been the first responder to plenty of car accidents, and he's never seen a kid dead from a fucking airbag. But Lori insisted. Pulled the “good parent” card.

She might have changed her mind by now, though; who knows, with the way Carl's been. Maybe she's finally ready to be the fun parent.

 _I need a blowjob_ , Rick thinks, rubbing his forehead as he waits for the light to turn green. _A handjob. Something. Maybe I should call Shane, go to one of those clubs he gets so many girls at. Or go to a bar on my own. The ones Daryl likes. Hell, plenty of guys look like Daryl in the dark. Girls look like Beth too..._

_Christ, Grimes. Christ christ christ._

Rick doesn't realize the light's turned green until he hears the honking behind him; and even then, he doesn't go. His eyes drifted from the road in his thinking, and they've caught on something.

Something else that's Greene.

She's walking out of the station. She's wearing a knee-length skirt over black tights. Flannel shirt, unbuttoned, over a white tee. Tank top, maybe. Cowboy boots.

He's changing lanes before his brain can tell him not to.

He follows behind her for a block or so, not even thinking; he's running on pure instinct now, pure adrenaline. Like Daryl says the best hunters do, when they're honed in on a kill.

Part of him is horrified for thinking like that. The rest is horny, and confused, and lonely, and she looks so lovely in the daylight.

“Beth,” he calls.

He realizes the windows are still closed, so he opens his, calls again. She must be lost in thought for it takes several tries for her to finally look around.

The smile she gives when she recognizes him stirs something funny in his chest. Not his cock. His chest.

She's turning towards him, oversized purse bumping at her side; he can worry about that later.

“Hey,” she says, walking over to where he's idling. There's no parking here, so he's in an active lane, and he's vaguely aware of annoyed drivers arcing around him.

They can be as annoyed as they want. Her hair is in a bun set high on her head, showing off a long, swan-like neck. Her flannel falls open a little, baring her armpit and a bit of shoulder. She _is_ wearing a tank, then.

This Rick does feel in his cock.

“Hey,” he says, a little husky, but nothing too noticeable. “Didn't know you'd be here.”

“They called me in for a line-up,” she says, coming to stand beside the car. She tucks her hair behind her ear, clutching tight to her bag. “They got him, alright.”

Rick frowns, his cock, at least, deciding to take a backseat.

“You ok?” he asks.

“Yeah. Yeah, I'm ok.” She shrugs, like it's no big deal. “Haven't been sleeping well.”

“You could have called. Or come over.”

Beth wrinkles her nose. “Didn't want to bother you again.”

“You wouldn't have.”

Rick doesn't know if that's true. Doesn't know what would have happened if Beth showed up at the apartment again, sliced up all the tension hanging in the air. Inserted herself in the middle of whatever's happening between Daryl and him.

That's not quite accurate. She's already in. She's _been_ in, somehow; tangled in the lines of lust and want and need curving through the air between Rick and Daryl's hands. She's grabbed hold of those strings. Clothed herself in them.

All it's taken is a tug and Rick can't want Daryl without wanting her too.

“Want a ride home?” Rick asks, in a far lower register than it needs to be.

His voice is dripping with it, how much he wants her in his car.

She either doesn't notice, or chooses to ignore it; just frowns and holds her bag tighter.

“Ain't that out of your way?”

Rick shrugs, practically thrumming.

“Not on a curfew.”

Still she hesitates, looking at him with wide eyes and parted lips and it takes everything Rick has not to adjust himself in his pants.

He wonders what he looks like to her now. If his face is red. If he looks like a lecher or the friendly neighborhood officer.

He's never quite been the first. Hasn't felt like the second for a long time.

He wonders which he should be missing.

“Alright.”

He blinks, and she's moving—rounding the hood and waiting for an irate driver to pass before slipping into the passenger seat, closing the door. She buckles, then smooths her skirt around herself, leaving her hands under the outsides of her thighs, feet bouncing a little.

She looks at Rick. He forgets himself and swallows, and watches as her eyes follow the movement down.

“We going or what?”

Rick makes a noise of non-committal and only fumbles a little when he switches out of neutral and pulls back onto the road.

The first few minutes pass in silence; strained on Rick's part, calm on hers. As far as he can tell, at least. She gives off the air of having her heart on her sleeve and her emotions in her eyes, but Rick knows from long years of police work that those are the ones who play you the most.

Beth doesn't seem to be playing now, though; just looks out the window at the passing cars, passing town, lost in thought and tapping her fingers in her lap to some rhythm only she can hear. He's watching her far more than he should, especially when driving; it's only when she catches him looking that he turns away with any resolution.

“So,” he says, clearing his throat, “How's school?”

He wants to smack himself. _How's school, Grimes, the fuck, you sound like her fucking auntie_.

Beth doesn't seem fazed, though; answers with a breezy, “Fine.” A few beats of silence, then, “Lonely.”

That Rick didn't expect. He glances at her and she's looking at her lap, playing with a wide leather bracelet she has on her wrist.

“You aren't making friends?”

Rick still feels like some kind of crusty relative; but her posture, her face, the sudden tension in the car—he's legitimately concerned now.

She shrugs, twisting the bracelet around her wrist. “I dunno. There are some nice people. I got into a cappella.”

“That's great, Beth,” Rick says.

“Yeah,” she says, like she doesn't think it's great at all. “They just... I dunno.” She tucks a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. “I thought going to college would mean I'd finally be around people who'd... get me, you know. I always felt older than my friends, and for a while I could deal with it, but when Mama went...” She trails off, glancing at him. “Sorry. You don't want to hear this.”

“I do,” he says. And he means it. He means it.

There goes that feeling in his chest again, thump-thumping away.

“Really?”

“Yes, Beth,” Rick says, risking their lives again to look at her; meet her now-watery gaze, her exhausted eyes. He remembers her saying she wasn't sleeping well; he doubts one night on their couch was enough to fix that. “You taking care of yourself?”

“I'm not starving myself or anything,” she says with a hint of indignation.

Rick's mouth twitches. “Sorry,” he says, turning back to the road. “Dad.”

“You aren't _my_ dad,” Beth says softly.

Rick's hands flex on the wheel. He glances at her and she's watching them and he knows she saw it.

He wonders what else she's looked at when he wasn't watching. Wonders if the pulse he sees beating like a rabbit's in her throat is from fear, disgust; wonders whether she's just biding time, distracting him so he doesn't pull anything before getting her home.

Wonders if all this is in his twisted, perverted head.

“Yeah. Well,” he says. “I can still worry about you.”

“You don't have to.”

“Care about you, then.”

A long silence fills the car and Rick doesn't look at her. Forces himself not to, grips the wheel with white knuckled hands and clenches his jaw and keeps his eyes on the road as he feels her gaze taking him in, sweeping, knowing. He shifts in his seat, praying his slacks are loose enough that she might mistake his dick for a pleat.

 _Too big for that_ , Rick thinks. If he were less distracted he might be horrified at the thought; as it is, he just smiles smugly to himself, well aware that he's on the way to a breakdown. Or coming in his pants. Or both.

He wonders if this is how Daryl feels all the time. The breakdown part. Not the coming. Mostly. Except at night, the times Rick hears him.

And now Rick's thinking about Daryl's dick too and he wishes he could jump from the car and just start running.

“My dad's a lot older than you.”

The smile slides from Rick's face, and he lets himself glance at her, confused. “Excuse me?”

“Was older than you are now when I was born, too.”

“How d'you know how old I am?” Rick asks, forcing a laugh.

“Your academy year,” she says, without even the grace of sounding embarrassed. “I looked you up.”

“Why?”

He sees her shrug out of the corner of his eye. She's only looking at him now and then, mostly looking out the front window; but she's sitting ramrod straight in her seat, back tight like she's ready to bolt. Or pounce.

Rick breathes out slowly through his nose. Slowly. Slowly.

“Was curious,” Beth says. A beat. “I couldn't find Daryl though.”

Rick does laugh now, loud and nervous and vaguely like a hyena. “Yeah. Yeah, you wouldn't.”

He senses her studying him again. He flexes his hands on the wheel. He realizes they've passed her apartment long ago, but doesn't mention it; just keeps gliding down the freeway, dick hard in his pants and hysteria building in his throat.

“How is Daryl?”

“Wouldn't know,” Rick says.

“He away?”

Rick snorts. “You could say that.” Another pause, another feeling of her eyes hot on him, pulling, prying him open. “I did... I did something I shouldn't have.”

“What did you do?”

Rick doesn't think. He blurts, his spit spotting the windshield.

“I sucked on his finger.”

A beat. Two. Three. He doesn't look at her.

“Oh,” Beth says.

“Yeah.”

“How'd that happen?”

Rick shrugs, peering out at the road with a single minded intensity.

“Rick?”

“Long story,” he mutters. He glances at her, quick enough that he doesn't really see her. “He likes you, though.”

He says it to turn the conversation away from himself; isn't quite comfortable with the way he feels Beth's eyes boring into him.

“Do _you_ like me?”

He's turned vaguely away from her, so he couldn't say if she's blinking or not. But with the smell of it, the razor edge of her focus burning his skin, sizzling his hair, melting the flesh from his bones—he can't imagine she is.

He says the worst thing possible in this moment.

He says nothing.

The silence in the car stretches longer and longer and Rick turns his thoughts to the night he met her. How she'd glared at him from the vantage of the porch, half delirious with exhaustion and trauma yet holding the knife firm anyway, glaring down a pair of men with guns, ready to fight them both before she gave an inch.

Getting her to give him the knife... Rick's ego says it was his doing. That he used his police training, the skills Daryl taught him, his own natural charisma to talk this little girl down, have her cede her authority like the robber had forced her to cede her peace of mind.

But Rick thinks back to that night. Thinks of the feral light in her eyes, and behind it, her own cool intelligence. Thinks of the way she looked between him and Shane and back again, and then at him, only at him, gaze drawing him forward until he was so close a flick of her wrist would cut his throat. Pulling him into her orbit. Into her power.

He didn't make her cede anything. He didn't make her cede anything at all.

“Take that exit.”

Rick frowns, startled enough out of his own head that he glances at her to be sure she actually spoke. A moment too late he remembers to fear that she might be looking at him, but luckily, she isn't; is instead pointing towards a turn-off up ahead. It could hardly be characterized as an exit, Rick thinks; little more than a track through the woods.

“But don't you–“

“Do it.”

He raises his eyebrows at her tone, but does what she says, easing from lane to lane until they turn off the freeway.

The land beyond the freeway is wooded and they quickly come under the shadow of the trees, arching above them and throwing dappled light across Rick's hands where they grasp the wheel. He doesn't know this part of the county well—knows from the state of the concrete alone that not many folks travel this way; at least not the kind of folks the state paves its roads for. The road beneath Rick's tires is pitted and cracked, and he feels his clenched teeth rattle with every bump. Beth, too, seems discomfited. Not nervous, not exactly; when Rick glances over at her, her furrowed brow and downturned eyes, hands clutching each other like she needs one to keep the other in check, his first thought is that she's thinking very hard about something.

His ego intervenes once more; claims it must be Rick himself occupying her thoughts, filling the car with the whirring of her brain, the way her eyelashes flutter when she glances to the side and catches him looking at her.

She doesn't look away, though; catches, and holds.

“Pull over.”

Rick goes a little ways on before following her instruction; continues until the location feels right, rolls into a little copse on the side of the road. The trees lie thick as a winter blanket above them, and although it is only the cusp of fall, he feels something of that icy cold descend upon them, the kind that makes it feel as if their alcove, their haven, is the last place of warmth on Earth.

His hands flex a few times on the wheel before they fall to his lap; rub across his thighs, then reach over and turn the engine off. As soon as it disengages he wishes he hadn't done so; feels even further oppressed by this deeper silence, the lack of white noise, the still that suffuses his body without the rumble of the engine to disturb it. He feels itchy, antsy, like he needs to move himself to make up for the difference. He rubs his thighs again and wonders idly if he should take up smoking, just for something to do in moments like these.

They sit there for nigh on five minutes without making a single noise or acknowledging the other. Rick looks at the trees around them, his hazy reflection in the window, down at himself and how absurd his hands look. It's something he's felt lately, and more and more since he destroyed what he and Daryl had—a discomfort in his own body, a separation from it, like he's an imposter looking down at someone else's skin.

He flips his hand up, looks at the lines in his palm; curls his fingers, inspects his cuticles. Not completely neat, but not ragged either, like Daryl's; trimmed when he has the time, just now growing a little longer than he prefers. He's making a mental note to cut them when he gets home when he hears something in Beth's breathing change.

He wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for the stillness of the car, and even so, when he looks at her he wonders if he imagined it. She's sitting just as she was when he last looked—straight-backed, face turned ahead and eyes turned inward, barely blinking as she looks in on some other world.

“Beth?”

She jerks, blinks as if coming out of a trance. She turns to look at him, eyelids fluttering softly. Both of their bodies are shadowed but for a single strip of light that falls across her forehead, slashing through it like a swipe of paint or a scar.

Whatever changed in her breathing is still there, but intensified as she looks at him, lips parting a little as she swipes the tip of her tongue across them. He's so focused on her mouth it takes him several moments to realize that he shouldn’t be; when he looks back up at her her expression hasn't changed, but her eyelids still flutter, casting shadows beneath shadows as she studies him. Looking for what, he doesn't know; knows only that she looks at his mouth too, and takes a long time to drag her eyes back up.

He tracks the swallow that works down her throat. Disappears into her clavicle, leads his eyes down the front of her shirt.

 _Her tank_ , he thinks. _Saw her bare arms, part of them; should'a met her in summer, girl like this is made for that season. Made for sweaters, too, thick, heavy. Cuddled up nice and small in her daddy's armchair, reading Austen novels, maybe. Bet she likes Austen._

 _You thinking you're Darcy, then?_ Rick asks himself. _Daryl's more like Darcy. You're Wickham; handsome cad getting his jollies off of others' misfortunes. Marrying for the wrong reasons. Toying with women he shouldn't toy with_.

He doesn't know where this literary analysis is going. He knows only that it's been another few minutes and he and Beth are still looking at each other and the car is off the road in the shade on a path that not many people travel.

He could do anything to her here.

She could do anything to him.

He's just wondering whether he still has a spare gun in the glove compartment when she's reaching across and cupping his cheek and pressing her lips to his.

He sits frozen for several moments; blinks, baffled eyes struggling to make sense of her face so close, the blurred sight of her pores. He's on the verge of needing reading glasses and he suddenly wishes he weren't; wishes her skin were as clear to him from this distance as Lori's had been, once upon a time; a time when they had been young and wild and kissed beneath the trees.

They were never wild, not really; he dated her and he loved her and they made a child together. And somewhere in the middle of all that they lost the reason to be so close in the first place.

Beth is close; as close as she can be with her seat belt still buckled in, and he imagines that at the speed she moved it's locked itself tight across her breastbone, keeping her from pressing further into him, keeping the pressure limited to her lips on his and her hand pressing his cheek to the seat back, anchoring him so he won't pull away. He isn't sure if he can; is sure only that this kiss that lasts seconds feels as long as the minutes prior had been and that when she pulls back he rages against the hand on his cheek that keeps him from following.

She doesn't go far; lingers close enough that she remains blurry around the edges, splashes of light and color as dazzling as a Monet.

She's moving like the movement a painting implies; swaying slightly as she adjusts her seating as unobtrusively as she can, and—yes, there's the seatbelt, plastered to her chest and drawing red lines on her skin.

When he looks back to her face she's farther away and he thinks she's speaking.

“Been wanting to do that,” she says. Her thumb drifts, falteringly, across his cheek; prickling on the week or so of beard he's managed to grow, and he wonders how long it would take to kiss the marks of his scruff into her cheeks. “Do you... I mean...”

She's looking more and more unsure as he stares at her. He knows he has to respond, he knows; but he's never been struck like this before, with the feeling that his life is about to change.

She's just beginning to release the pressure on his cheek when he reaches out a hand and pulls her back in.

She makes the cutest little noise when his lips touch hers—half a gasp, half a squeak—and he finds himself smiling into her mouth as he kisses her. Kissing her. Kissing her. Kissing Beth Greene.

She's smiling into him too; half laughing as he cups the back of her head with his hand, struggling to keep his grin in, concentrate on the kiss, make this as good for her as she must have been dreaming it would be. She's been wanting to do this, wanting to kiss him, and he wonders what other things...

He groans at the thought, and then he isn't smiling and neither is she—he slides his tongue across her lips and she _moans_ , a high pitched exhalation that sends shivers down his spine as he clutches her tighter, working her mouth open and spreading his tongue against hers and feeling the plushness of her lips as she kisses him back for all she's worth. She threads her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck and the light tugs she gives shoot like lightning to his cock. He groans again, louder, groans and practically yanks her across the meridian, only stopping when she gives a pained gasp.

He doesn't follow when she pulls back and their lips separate with a loud _pop_ , a strand of saliva leaping back to speckle Rick's chin. He breathes heavily, his vision hazy, staring at the nipples hard beneath her tank as she pulls the seatbelt away from her skin.

She doesn't let him look at her for long; leans back in to kiss him in three short pecks, lick again across the seam of his lips; whisper two words in sibilant lust, words that send shivers down his spine:

“Back seat.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick, Beth, and the backseat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rick is an asshole. That is all.
> 
> Enjoy ;)

Rick doesn't realize until he's exited the car that it's begun to rain.

It isn't a driving one; not the type that would bring the fear of flood, or treacherous roads. It's more a delicate spotting, the signs of it jumping one by one from what he can see of his uniform, darkening the tan fabric like spots of paint. He takes a moment by the side of the car to turn his face to the sky, close his eyes and inhale the scent of woods around him; the tang of his own body odor, the residual trails of a skunk that had crossed this path. He looks behind them and he sees that he's put a screen of trees between them and the road. A fellow traveller would only know they were there if they knew where to look.

Rick hears the sound of a car door closing; moments later, another opening. There's a pause, then; long and drawn out and he holds his breath as he looks to the road and to the rain and finally that door closes too.

He takes another deep breath; palms himself and nearly doubles over. He's been half-hard for so long it had faded to the back of his mind. A mere fact of biology: the paper cut on his finger that he's forgotten the sting of, a pizza burn on the roof of his mouth, the swell of his dick for the teenager waiting in the back seat of his car.

It rained like this when they were in Scotland, him and Lori. It was the only trip like that they ever took together: two weeks of castles and moors and mountains, kissing by walls a millennia old and walking through rain like this. He's almost certain Carl was conceived in their hotel on the Canongate, the one day it rained so long they couldn't drag themselves out of bed; lay there and made love for hours, like the children they'd been when they fell in love.

The rain is what's falling now, and Rick goes with it.

He sees a flash of movement from inside the car when he turns around, and he smirks, picturing Beth peering out through the misting window and scampering away as soon as he might see her. And there's something so... playful in that image. A lightness and flushed embarrassment that he hasn't felt in years.

He walks forward and opens a door of his own.

She's taken her flannel off is the first thing he sees; has it folded neatly in her lap, corners tucked tight enough that he imagines it must have been done to keep her hands busy. He's arrested by the sight of her pale arms; he hasn't seen so much skin on her at once and the realization that he's likely to see a lot more has his face heating beyond belief.

“Was beginning to think you'd changed your mind.”

He looks at her, so small and tidy before him. She leans back against the seat, relaxed, but her hands belie her nervousness, twisting and twining in her lap like a bed of snakes. As he watches, goosebumps begin to rise along her bare arms, riding the skin in a rippling wave that ends in a full body shudder, fluttering through her eyelashes and peaked nipples, hard beneath her shirt.

God, he wants her.

“Put your legs up,” he says. In the back of his head he thinks he sounds a little like Daryl, with his voice gone this low, and he wonders if she notices, wonders if she likes it—and then he isn't wondering anything because she's shucking her boots and swinging tiny socked feet up onto the seat. Her toes clench and unclench nervously as she looks up at him through her eyelashes. Waits for his next move.

Rick's a dumb-ass. Even going this far, short as the journey's seemed, crossed a line he's never even thought of approaching. He's been on the force for a long time; he's seen people he's wanted. Some of them have wanted him back. But at the end of the day he was a father and a cop and a husband first.

He's no longer a husband. Is barely a father. And like everything else, his identity as a cop has come unmoored.

But he's still an officer of the law. He swore an oath.

 _Protect and serve_.

Despite the shake of her limbs and the nervous lines around her eyes... he doesn't think this girl needs protection. Not from him. Not, he thinks, from anyone.

But maybe she needs some service.

He nods at her legs, trembling, trembling.

“C'mon,” he murmurs. “Lemme see.”

She's blushing harder than she had been already, a feat he would have thought biologically impossible if he weren't seeing it with his own two eyes. And he is seeing it—her high pink blush, the indents her teeth made on her lip, and he's halfway to hoping she's changed her mind so they can go from complicated back to simple when she swallows hard and lets her knees drop open.

He doesn't stop himself from looking: following the strong lines of her thighs beneath her leggings, the creases where the material's worn thin, the just-visible pink of her panties between the seams. He can see little more than the color, but he can imagine them—soft cotton, worn cotton, stained maybe with the spots of an old period. Lori always threw away her stained panties, but Rick doesn't know if Beth would; with her wayward, windswept appearance, the homegrown ease of her clothing, she seems like the kind of girl not to mind a few stains now and then.

He licks his lips. He meets her eyes. He palms his crotch, watches her eyes dart down to watch, strain themselves to leave. She doesn't look nervous anymore.

“You still want this?”

She's barely finished nodding before he's on her.

He leaves the door open behind him, feels the rain mist his trousers as he swallows her gasp, dragging himself up her body so she can feel every plane of him, hard and lean and heated against her softness, the plushness of her lips as she opens them beneath his, scrambles for the front of his uniform as he yanks her far enough forward so he can kiss her into the seat. She drops down with a blast of hot air from her nostrils and a gaping mouth that he takes full advantage of, again sliding his tongue inside to press hers down like his body is pressing her body, so small and slight beneath him, so warm where his palms find themselves on her waist, still above her tank top but clutching the thin material so tightly it might as well have vanished.

After a lifetime of kissing Lori she's something different, she's something _new—_ but she's more than that too. She's the strawberry scent of her shampoo and the sharpness of her sweat, the bitter taste of adrenaline from the lineup and the station and him, him who she's been wanting like he's been wanting her and the thought of someone wanting him back makes him groan, deep and guttural into her mouth and she answers with one of her own, higher and feminine but just as needful, just as wild, and he's overcome by the need to see the face of the woman making that noise.

She whines, vocally _whines_ when he rips his mouth away from hers, chasing him as far as she can until his weight presses her back down.

They spend a moment staring at each other—chests heaving and fingers still clutching and her face is flushed and open and her mouth smeared with spit, her tongue small and pink when it swipes across her lips.

“Rick,” she murmurs, threading the fingers of one hand through his hair, catching on the curls and sending spikes of heat directly to his cock. Which she feels, she must feel, pressed against her hip like he is, and with her eyes blue and heavy he can't help rubbing against her, just a little, and that he _knows_ she feels—he feels the way she responds, the little arch she gives, rubbing right back against him, and he has to hunch his hips to keep from thrusting in turn.

“When'd you start calling me that?” he asks, voice raspy in a way he hasn't heard it in years—except maybe once or twice, when he and Daryl were drunk and close and his whole body ached like a lonely thing—but he isn't thinking about Daryl now. That's part of what this is, isn't it? Distracting himself from what he can't have with... something else he can't have. Not beyond today, not beyond this, a fumble in the back seat of his car a mile off the main road. It's a fumble, he can't expect it to be anything more—but her hand is still carding through his hair, tickling the down on his nape, and he doesn't try to temper his groan as he leans down to press his lips to her neck.

“It's your name, isn't it?” she asks, breathy, barely a voice as she arches her head back and holds him tight, pressing him closer as if he might not want to be there.

“Thought it was 'officer' to you.”

“I can call you officer if you want.”

Rick's teeth close in surprise, catching her skin between them and she _moans_ —long and low and he recovers fast, moving his hand into her own hair to tilt her head back further, lick up and down her throat until he feels her legs part beneath him and suddenly he's cradled in the trough of her hips, covered by three layers of fabric but still burning and he can't help the roll he gives against her; can't help, he can't help, it's all he can think in this moment when his hand goes to the sleeve of her tank, pulls it down her shoulder to reveal all that pale, unbroken skin, the way it pinks under his gaze.

“Officer Grimes...”

“Don't,” he says, glancing up at her. Her legs are spread so wide that one of them has fallen from the seat, is bracing itself on the floor of the car, and her eyes are burning, wide open and needy. Needy. Needing him. “Rick is fine,” he says. “I'm Rick.”

“I'm Beth,” she says. A smile quirks her lips. “Nice to meet you, Rick.”

He snorts before he can stop himself, but she doesn't seem to mind; shivers a little when the air puffs across her still-heaving chest.

He kisses her—right between her collarbones, laving out his tongue to capture the sweet and salt of sweat on her skin. She shivers just like he wants her to, just like he expects—and the fact that he's already anticipating her reactions blasts him hot and cold all at once.

“How far do you want this to go?” he asks against her skin, hips rolling again and sending a choked moan into her throat.

She pushes at his chest, and he goes quickly; rearing up above her, weight on hand and elbow as he looks down at her, hair damp with sweat dangling wildly in his eyes.

The leg that had fallen off the seat comes up, hooks around the back of his thighs. Her hand slips from his hair, glides down his shirt where it sticks to his spine, settling at the dip in his back. She tips her head back, lips open. She looks wild, too.

“Till one of us says stop,” Beth says.

She takes her thighs and she _squeezes_.

Rick will later deny the sound he makes then—something between a gasp and a whine because it's been long, it's been _so long_ since he's felt a pair of legs around him like that, lean and hard and pulling him in, and when she begins to roll her hips too he growls, grinding into her and glaring until she seems beyond words.

“You let me,” he says, and snakes a hand up her skirt to grab her leggings and yank them down.

The backseat is tight; it takes longer than he wants it to for him to wrestle the fabric down her thighs, and it doesn't help that she chooses this moment to surge up and recapture his mouth with hers, dragging him in with just the allure of her lips. She's fumbling too, trying to lift her hips to help him along and drag his shirt out of his pants at the same time, and it feels awkward and juvenile the way he keeps bumping the seat-back with his elbows and jabbing her cheek with his nose and jesus christ he hasn't felt like this since high school, it's been a _year_ since she was in high school, and if he's feeling this reckless and unbounded maybe now's not the best time—

And then he's got it. Leggings down her thighs, panties gone with them, and once he's gotten it all shoved down her ankles he doesn't waste a moment before pressing her back down and cramming his fingers between them.

 _She has hair_ , Rick thinks. It's all he can think. All he can let himself note at this moment when she moans, bucking her hips towards him, pushing his fingers down to the crest of her cleft and there—

Soaked. Already soaked, seeping into the hair ascending from her slit—or descending, as his hand aches to do, but he feels something like sadism rising in him so he stays, pinning her hard with his free hand on her shoulder and his hips on her thighs, and when he shoves her, bouncing them both on the cheap suede upholstery, her bucking recedes to trembling little thrusts, cants of her hips. Rick presses on her mons with the heel of his palm until he feels the bone hard beneath, and his fingers drift, back and forth through her hair like it's grass dotted with morning dew.

He lifts his head from where he'd been kissing her sloppily, looking down with heavy-lidded eyes. She starts to spread her hands across the skin of his back, but he pushes again and she freezes. She stops trying to touch him and she looks at him, just looks, eyes darkened to the blue of a sky headed towards night, lips pink and swollen and he wonders if he got off her and ordered her to suck him off if she'd do it. His cock jerks, and by the widening of her eyes he knows that even through his pants she can feel it, and the manner of things he wants to do with this girl runs a list a mile long.

And she's still staring up and he's still staring down and using more pressure with his fingers makes her eyes flutter. She pushes on his lower back, slightly, slow, and he drags his clothed cock once up her hip; down, slowly again, and he doesn't know which of them is panting harder and he knows the pressure on her mons must be painful but if she's uncomfortable she isn't showing it a bit.

The opposite, in fact; he rubs his fingers side to side, spreading more wet with every pass as it seeps from deep inside her. He feels her muscles moving as she tries to spread her legs wider while keeping her thighs clamped around him, like she's afraid he'll turn and go.

Silly girl. Silly little girl.

“Rick,” she says. She gulps, muscles working down her throat to vanish below the clavicle. He smiles, lazy, and something in her eyes sparks to life—like recognition, or hunger, or some melange of both. “Rick, please.”

“Beg for it, sweetie.”

There's more in her eyes, something like amusement, and he can't have that; without moving his hand from its place near her pussy, he takes the other from her shoulder and moves it down to smooth against her stomach, hot and large. He has to pull himself more onto his knee to balance, and with his other leg twisted across the floor of the car he knows his joints will ache come morning; but his cock still brushes her hip now and again, and he feels her eyes intent on his face as he scrunches the fabric and then drags it upward.

A sweet little belly button, an innie, begging for a tongue fucking. Smooth skin, the muscles beneath them, more toned than he would have expected. The ledge of her ribs, billowing up and down as she breathes so deep, stomach sinking into the depression it makes. Higher. More ribs, counting one by one, ridges beneath his fingers and his palm that he rides like waves, the white of her tank the swell.

She isn't wearing a bra—he could tell that when she got into his car and he can tell it now, her nipples pushing out hard as they are. He'd always liked that about small-chested women—looking at them, trying to guess if they were wearing one or not, shifting in his pants when they weren't.

Lori started wearing them more often after Carl was born and she started to sag, but before then he could count on one hand the number of times she didn't go bare. In those early days when they were young and new he loved to plaster himself to her back while she cooked or paid bills and slide his palms right up to cup her, twist her nipples until even through the loosest shirt they'd be able to be seen.

Beth is smaller even than Lori and he glances up at her when he reaches the bottom of her breast; sees her staring at the ceiling, eyes fluttering open and closed, nostrils flaring even as she breathes through her open mouth.

“Beth,” Rick murmurs. Her eyes jerk open and she looks at him quickly, and her eyes widen at what she sees; as if she can't quite comprehend the sight of the two of them together, his hand on her pussy clearly visible. She must be able to see as he moves his knuckles; still, barely moving them, but exaggerating the motions as she watches; and when her eyes crawl back up her own body to meet his eyes he doesn't look away from her as he bends down to press a wet kiss to her ribs, just below the bunched fabric of her tank.

Her mouth opens but no sound comes out, and soon he lowers his eyes, concentrates on what he's doing; kissing back and forth along the bottoms of her covered breasts, flicking his tongue out from time to time, tasting her salty sweet. His forehead brushes her nipple on one pass and she shivers violently, hips jerking again and he has to press once more on her mons to keep her still.

It doesn't matter that he hasn't reached between her lips yet; his fingers are wet to the knuckle and growing wetter, and something about this girl makes him want to be cruel.

Maybe it's the smoothness of her skin, unmarred, free of blemish. Maybe it's her youth, and the devil in him ready to harm that.

Or maybe it's the memory of her on the porch, police lights and guns in her eyes, glaring like she's ready to take more than just two of them down.

She can take it. Whatever he gives, she can take it.

“You gonna ask me, honey?” he asks against her skin, sending more shivers across her abdomen. “Or we gonna do this all day?”

“Don't see why that has to be mutually exclusive,” she says, voice high and void of breath, eyes wide as he sticks his tongue out and traces it up and down her sternum.

He chuckles, a rumble deep in his chest, and he doesn't think he's felt so delighted in years.

“'S up to you,” he says, rubbing the heel of his palm once against her mons before beginning to draw it away.

She moves too fast for him to stop and then her hand is on his wrist, stronger than he would have expected, holding him down, and in his surprise his middle finger slides between her lips to the base of her clit and suddenly he doesn't care about this game anymore.

He thinks she knows that. He sees it in her breathless anticipation, the way her thighs relax a little around his hips, like she isn't so afraid of him leaving.

It doesn't stop her from playing along, though.

“Please,” she breathes, eyes sparking mischief even as she attempts to look desperate, fallen open and helpless—and it isn't that much of an illusion with how big Rick feels hovering over her, more powerful than he's felt in months, maybe years, this woman's pleasure all his to give. He slides further up the seat so he really does feel like he's looming, and he can only imagine what they must look like—what it would look like to see her with Daryl, his broad shoulders dwarfing her tiny torso, her body nearly vanished beneath his as she reaches for Rick in desperation—

He blinks, and the vision's gone—but not the arousal he felt from it, more than enough to override the shame of picturing the two of them together, holding her down, drawing out her climax again and again.

And touching. Touching each other. Touching backs and thighs and chests and cocks, cleaning Beth's cunt off of each other with seeking and famished tongues.

And here she is. Close enough to touch. And he _is_ touching her—finger sinking lower to circle her clit, hardening in a mirror of his own arousal, eyes gifted with the sight of her mouth falling open between reddened cheeks, eyes fluttering shut, hips jolting beneath him as she chases the pressure.

“Rick, please,” she damn near sobs, and Rick can't help but thrust his cock against her, even as his finger continues its slow circling.

“Tell me what you want, honey.”

“I want to–, _please_ ,” she gasps, hands everywhere, running across Rick's back and chest and squeezing her own breasts or sinking in his hair and he thinks it's the most goddamned beautiful thing he's seen in his entire fucking life.

“Want to what? Wanna come?” He punctuates the word by pressing down like he's pressing a button, and if he didn't have such a good grip her leaping hips would have unseated him. “Want me to make you come, sweet thing?”

She's gaping at him—at his words or his audacity in teasing her like this, he doesn't know, and he grins wickedly into her face until a hand at his waistband stops him short.

“Bet–“

He can't finish, because her hand is on his cock. Her hand is _cradling_ his cock, kneading him through the damp crotch of his jeans, closing her hand and pulling like she wants to lift it away from his body. He looks at her in astonishment and through her tortured face she's grinning.

“Looks like you want something too, Officer Grimes.”

And he does. Christ almighty, he does.

“Take it out,” he whispers, leaning down to kiss her jaw, her cheek, her neck, sucking and nibbling as her hands fly down between them, yanking at his belt and undoing the zip and she doesn't even push his trousers down before she's reaching into his underwear and holding him in her warm palm.

And he has to take a moment. Because this is so much. So much and he was never prepared for how much it is.

She strokes him—a little clumsily at first, and fuck, did he even bother to ask if she's done this before—but when his mouth opens once more to gasp against her neck, she seems to gain confidence, stroking again, with more of a squeeze.

Rick moans, loud and throaty and it's been so _long_ and if she's startled by his abandon she doesn't show it; just bucks her hips against his hand, hitting her clit again against his finger, and in this moment he wants nothing more than to see her face in climax while his seed drips down her wrist.

So he gives it to her. Plunges his finger down the line of her slit until it tickles her entrance, drags it back up to meet her clit, brings another finger to join the first and begins to rub.

“Oh fuck, oh my fuck,” Beth gasps, mouthing at his cheek while he continues to kiss her neck, and she _tugs_ at him, tugs again until he understands and begins fucking her fist, bouncing the both of them in his desperation. Beth's hips are practically flying now, barely touching the seat, chasing his touch and he gives it to her, gives her his fingers and his hand pushing up her tank to lick at her nipple, paint it pebbly wet, and when Beth yanks at his hair he gives that too—surges up to claim her mouth and kiss her fiercely, tongue plunging inside with no thought or invitation and she kisses back just as hard, ending a stroke by flicking her palm around the head of his cock and he doesn't even _think_ before shoving his hand down and fucking a finger inside of her.

She cries out, clenching down on him and screwing up her face, and if he saw an ounce of pain he would stop but she takes him so easily, swallowing him deep as he fucks into her cunt and fucks her fist and it's wet and juicy and squelching and he can feel the shudders beginning deep inside her as his own balls draw hot and tight—

The horn blasts so sudden and so loud that Rick's first instinct is to reach for his gun, pulling his finger out of Beth and scrambling against his hip with his wet hand until he remembers his piece is locked away in the weapons locker.

He pushes himself up, head connecting painfully with the roof of the car, and as he's trying to reorient himself he watches Beth reach towards the front seat, tits dangling in the fucking breeze until she retrieves something and the horn stops.

“Maggie?” she gasps. Rick blinks, recognizing her phone clutched in her hand. The same hand he had been fucking moments before, the hand with a drop of his pre-cum dribbling down the side. Beth meets his eyes for one hard, pounding moment, before reaching up to tug down her tank and pull herself far enough out from under him that she can sit up, swing her legs down off the seat. “No, I'm... I'm going up a hill. I'm walking home.” Her thighs are shimmering, dripping, and even with legs closed he can see the opening at the top of her lips before she flips her skirt down. “Yeah, no, it's fine, the lineup was fine.” Her face is flushed, her hair wild; she looks at him again, then down, biting her lip and blushing harder. And he realizes what she sees—his cock, rock hard and dripping, sticking out from his fly like a goddamned unicorn horn. He drops onto his ass on the seat, shoving himself back inside his underwear, wincing as the cloth constricts the swollen flesh. “I dunno, Mags, I'm not home yet.” 

Rick squeezes his eyes shut, trying to control his breathing, calm his racing heart, struggle to suppress the ache in his balls. He's concentrating so hard that he must zone out for the rest of the conversation; because the next thing he knows, fingers are brushing tentatively across his shoulder.

She blinks at him a few times, her smeared mascara making her looks spooked and owlish. He merely looks back, mouth open as he continues to struggle to breathe. Beth's set the phone down on the seat between them. He sees that drop of himself glimmering on the edge of the case.

“I... I forgot, I promised my sister I'd call. When I was done. At the station.” Beth blinks again, looks down towards the floor. “She... she wants to go out to dinner–“

“I should get you home then.” Rick doesn't know if his voice has ever made that sound. Not so deep, and strained, vocal cords vibrating madly. He sounds almost like Daryl.

“Yeah. Yeah, if you could.”

They sit a few moments in silence. Rick can almost hear a clock ticking.

“I guess–“

“Yeah.”

They open the doors at the same time. They settle into the front at the same time. Rick turns the ignition and Beth buckles herself in and they ignore her leggings and panties abandoned in the back for the whole ride home.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick's blood is still up after his encounter with Beth. He should know by now that these situations never end cleanly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw jeeze, this was fun to write. Please let me know what you think <3

Rick sits outside of his building for a long time. Sits until dusk turns to dark and he feels like one of the criminals he hunts, alone in a parked and humming vehicle, ready to grab someone off the street and speed off.

 _She's probably with her sister by now_ , Rick thinks, head leaning back on the head rest as he watches the street. Someone walks by every few minutes; none of them notice him, or at least they pretend not to. He'd think the women at least would turn their heads, note the silent presence in the car and walk a little faster. But no. Maybe it's the night. Drifting in through the cracked open window, humid and heady, still misting a little against the glass. Every so often he has to rub his sleeve against the window to clear it so he can keep people-watching, so he isn't just a man in a rumbling car trying to ignore the stiffie in his pants.

It isn't much now; just a little harder than normal, enough for him to be aware of it but not enough that anyone else could tell by looking. By touching, maybe. Someone could touch him and they'd wonder what he's thinking about alone in his car as the night draws around him.

She hadn't said a word to him the rest of the way. Looked like she wanted to right before she left, but she didn't; practically sprinted from his car to the door of her house, fumbling with the keys and glancing back as if to see if he had followed her up the steps. But no. He waited until she was inside and then sped away fast enough that she might even have heard the tires screeching.

She's with her sister now. Probably showered as soon as she got inside, to wash the stickiness off her thighs, whatever scent Rick left on her, swirling down the drain.

He wonders if she touched herself. Idly, idly he wonders, head tipped back and eyes nearly closed as he watches the street, fingers drumming slowly on the wheel as he thinks of her leaning against the shower wall, lip between her teeth and fingers scrambling in her cunt, moving easily with how wet she was. God, her underwear must have been soaked through; he almost checked the passenger seat for a wet stain and just managed not to. Held out until it would have dried anyway; until she would have gotten herself off and stepped from the shower and gotten ready for dinner with her sister, ready to tell her all about the lineup, her long, lonely walk home...

She won't talk about Rick. He doesn't know her well but he knows enough that he knows she won't tell. How she gave an aborted handjob to an officer twice her age as he finger fucked her into the seat of his car after practically kidnapping her off the side walk. No. No, she won't tell.

Somehow, that doesn't make him feel any better.

When he emerges from his car night has fully fallen, but none of the mugginess has left the air. It leaves him feeling lightheaded, and he stumbles a little as he begins the block-long walk to his apartment. Their apartment. Daryl's apartment. Christ. In all this mess with Beth he'd nearly forgotten about Daryl and the mess he made there. Always Rick, always the one making messes, the one that gets run from when he ain't even the one to be blamed. Daryl's the one got his thumb all bloody that day; should have known Rick's blood was up after seeing Beth, should have known when he stuck his fucking finger in Rick's face what would happen. He wants it, just like Beth wants it. Rick knows he wants it and yet he's been running off, running scared, like Rick's trying to take something that doesn't belong to him.

With Daryl on his mind, he's hardly even surprised when he looks up to their familiar living room window. It takes him a few moments before his sluggish brain catches up to the incongruity; how dark the apartment has been since what happened happened, how Daryl's been avoiding him.

And now the light is on.

Rick swallows and doesn't fumble with the keys when he lets himself into the building.

The apartment door isn't locked. Rick tries the handle first out of his police training, even though Daryl is practically neurotic about keeping their door locked. But Rick turns it, and the door swings open, and he steps through.

And there's Daryl like nothing's changed. Standing at the opposite wall of the living room between their two bedrooms, caught in mid-step and frozen now, staring at Rick with wide eyes before he wipes his expression clean, straightens up and squares his shoulders. Rick can't help the time he takes looking at him; his broad shoulders and the long hair that hangs in his eyes, that narrow fucking waist and his baggy jeans, much baggier than Rick tends to wear, and Rick wonders what Daryl would look like in a size or two smaller. He knows how big Daryl's dick is, by some estimate—he wears boxers around the apartment sometimes, although always with a shirt, and there are moments when the fabric stretches just right, outlining a thick shaft and uncut head, and Rick's been quick to turn away in the past, especially if he's in his own boxer briefs, but he doesn't turn away now. Feels his blood running too fast through his body, his face getting red like he's been drinking. By the time he drags his eyes back up to Daryl's face his underwear is starting to chafe, just a little; when he locks eyes with Daryl's intense gaze Rick feels his cock jump, remembering the feel of Beth's hand around it earlier, the friction of her thin thigh, thinks what it would be like to see Daryl under him instead, or Beth under him while Daryl watched, his eyes burning like two blue coals, searing into Rick's skin.

It takes Rick a long time to realize that he's frozen in the doorway of the apartment, his hand still on the doorknob of the open door. He steps forward and closes it behind himself, eyes quickly taking in the room to try and guess what Daryl's doing here. If the man's still intent on avoiding Rick, now would not be the time to come home; if not for Beth, he would have been back in the apartment hours ago, watching sports in his underwear with glazed over eyes and glancing towards the door every few minutes like a dog waiting for his master to come home. It's not that he isn't used to being alone—although he isn't, and the past week's been hell because of it—but he _misses_ Daryl. Misses his quiet presence, how he can sink into the shadows or fill up the room with just a shift in his posture, his dry wit and the way he looks at Rick sometimes like... not like this thing might be reciprocated. Not exactly. But like Daryl isn't all that used to being alone either, and he's glad Rick is there to alleviate it.

He doesn't look glad to see Rick now. His shoulders are straight, but they're tense, tendons standing out in his neck, and in his clenched fists–

Rick feels his eyes widen, although he doesn't mean them to. Knows there are ways to handle this situation—diffuse it, get Daryl's hackles down, maybe do some damage control. He's trained in hostage negotiation and even if Rick's the one who feels like he's been taken captive, he could bring Daryl around. Explain away the whole mess, say he'd been thinking about Beth, his head wasn't clear, it's not about Daryl at all. He could have been anyone and Rick would still have taken his bloody thumb and sucked it into his mouth and rolled his tongue behind pursed lips like he knows feels good on the head of a dick.

He knows what he should do, but he sees the bags in Daryl's hands—the straps held by white-knuckled hands that grow even tighter as Rick looks at them—and he remembers another night when he came home and found someone with bags waiting for him. And something about that memory combined with the chafe on his dick throws any diplomacy he could have used out the window.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Rick asks. His voice is deep and scratchy from dehydration, and he almost clears his throat but doesn't; watches Daryl's throat work instead, watches him swallow, smells the nerves coming off of him in waves. “Daryl, what the fuck are you doing?” he repeats.

“Packing,” Daryl says.

“For what?”

“I'm leaving.” Daryl shifts his stance, chin high. Rick can see him trying to suppress his nervous tics: his fingers are jumping, wanting to bring his thumbnail to his mouth, and Rick can feel the effort it's taking him to hold Rick's gaze. Any other time and Rick would be impressed.

“Where are you going?” Rick asks.

Daryl shrugs. “Found a place. Figured you wouldn't want me around.”

Rick blinks. “Daryl, this is your apartment,” he says. “I'm–, you're letting _me_ live here, why the fuck are you moving out?”

Daryl does look away now; breaks Rick's gaze and flexes the muscles in his covered arms like he wants to drop the bags and get his hands free. To defend himself.

Rick feels his discontent deflate beneath his confusion, but only a little. Feels it simmering dangerously behind his eyes, and he knows Daryl sees it when their gazes meet for a moment before Daryl wrenches his own away.

“Daryl?”

“Just thought–“

“This still about last week?” Rick asks, cutting off Daryl's mumble. He sees Daryl's eyes dart to Rick's mouth and away and Rick feels his flush spreading up his neck even as his dick throbs. “'Bout what I did?”

“'S just time–“

“Daryl.”

Something in his tone must be dangerous enough that Daryl's instincts force his eyes up; he meets Rick's eyes and swallows visibly. He looks terrified, and part of Rick knows he should back down. Let Daryl do what he wants and leave, or do what he should have done from the start—get him sitting down, both of them calm, rational, talking out their problems like the adults they are.

But Rick doesn't feel much like an adult right now. Too much of the horny teenager he'd been when he was with Beth is left in his system, too much tension. He looks at Daryl and his dick is getting painful now and his balls are still hot and full from before and he feels his deferred orgasm boiling his blood into anger.

“You were gonna leave without telling me?”

“Rick–“

“Just pack up your bags and leave, that's it? Never see me again?”

“I didn't wanna–“

“Cause you're a fucking homophobe?”

Daryl goes deathly still, stares at Rick unblinking. Rick expects him to deny it, or accuse Rick of attacking him—but he's still. And the fear on his face breaks something open in Rick that he didn't know existed before.

“I don't know what I am,” Daryl whispers.

Rick doesn't remember crossing the room—comprehends only the sound of Daryl dropping his bags, the step back he takes till he's flush against the wall and Rick is flush against him, gripping hard to Daryl's biceps and pushing him back with his hands and his presence. Their chests are pressed together but Rick keeps his hips away, knowing that it would be too much just as vividly as he knows Daryl is as hard as he is. Harder, maybe, with the way he squirms against Rick's grip. Not so much to escape, which Rick believes he could do easily—Daryl isn't trained but he's been getting into fights since Rick was winning debate medals, but... Rick doesn't know why. Daryl presses himself against the wall with his head tipped back and Rick lets his eyes run across the thick expanse of Daryl's throat, the lurid pumping of his pulse, before looking him in the eyes again. Daryl's nostrils are flaring and his pupils are blown open and Rick braces himself with a knee between Daryl's legs, making the man shrink back still farther.

“I'm sick of you avoiding me,” Rick says from the base of his chest, making both of them rumble, Daryl's rib cage expand. Rick swallows, stares into Daryl's eyes that have given up on avoiding his; eyes that barely blink as Rick leans closer, close enough that their noses brush and a shudder runs through Daryl's entire body. Rick swallows, and squeezes Daryl's biceps, and when he inhales the other man's scent makes him so dizzy that he moves a hand to Daryl's throat to steady himself.

Daryl draws in a sharp breath through his nose but says nothing; breathes heavily under Rick's hand, Adam's apple and the bumps and ridges of his esophagus pressing into Rick's palm, his pulse pumping wildly. Rick draws in a breath and feels their chests expand together and he _growls_ , a sound he knows he's never made before but which causes another gust of air to shoot from Daryl's nose and pool against Rick's wrist, making the tendons flex, his fingers tighten as he leans in with more of his body until Rick knows Daryl can feel him hard and aching against his thigh. Rick thinks he feels something similar against his own hip but Daryl twists himself away, freezing when Rick's hand tightens again. Rick can feel the air struggling to force its way past his grip and it makes him want to squeeze even harder.

But he doesn't. He looks Daryl in the eye, strokes his thumb across Daryl's pulse, breathes against his jaw. Daryl is stiff as a board and he doesn't resist when Rick grinds his dick into Daryl's leg, but he doesn't press into it either.

 _10-16 7240: Sexual assault, domestic violence, closest unit respond_ , the dispatcher's voice whispers in his head, but Rick shoves it aside; forces himself to focus only on the second body he's had trapped against him in the past few hours, the differences—how Daryl's width dwarfs him while Beth had felt so tiny, her soft little gasps and Daryl's harsh breaths, how every time Rick closes his eyes to blink he feels Beth looking over his shoulder, leaning into him so he leans into Daryl, rolls his hips with her hands on his pelvis until Daryl's eyelids flutter. The arm that Rick freed to take hold of Daryl's throat has come up to grasp the fabric over Rick's elbow—not to push him away or pull him closer, but like Daryl needs something to hang onto.

Rick tilts his head, stroking Daryl's pulse point again, wanting to hear something other than his heavy breathing. But he's never known anyone as stubborn as Daryl in his whole life, and if this is what Daryl's giving, this is what Rick will get.

Unless he does something more.

“You gonna tell me you don't want this?” Rick whispers, hisses into Daryl's face and causes another full body shudder. “You gonna walk away from this, Daryl? You gonna walk away from me?” He tightens his hold on Daryl's throat and Daryl glares at him, struggling not to let his distress show, keeping his breathing as shallow as possible. It makes Rick wonder how many other hands Daryl has had wrapped around his throat, and fuck if Rick doesn't just about shoot off right there.

“This is your chance, Daryl,” Rick says. “You wanna leave, you tell me now. You push me away and you walk the fuck out of here and you never gotta see me again.” Rick rolls his hips again and there–, fuck, there it is; Daryl pushing hard and thick against the confines of his jeans, and his pelvis jumps into Rick's even as he grits his teeth. “You walk outta here,” Rick whispers, face so close, nearly kissing Daryl with each word as he stares at the other man till they both go cross-eyed, “or you stay. And you do something about this. You do what you wanna do.” He presses on Daryl's pulse-point, feels it pounding as hard and fast as the pulse in Rick's own head. “What do you want, Daryl?”

The apartment is silent—Rick didn't realize how silent. No sounds, not even from the street or the neighbor's dog, just them and the empty air and their harsh breathing as Daryl's eyes flutter shut, as he swallows under Rick's hand, as he groans, whines, high, desperate, and sinks out of Rick's grip to collapse to his knees.

A spike of concern shoots through Rick's chest before Daryl's hands come up and begin to fumble at Rick's belt.

And then there's only heat.

He doesn't do anything to help. Watches in silence as Daryl struggles like he's never undone a belt before, clumsy hands knocking against Rick's cock until he has the belt open and the fly and button undone and is drawing it all down, not even bothering with the Y-flap as he takes Rick's underwear in his grip and pulls until the whole mess is clinging to Rick's thighs beneath his balls, trousers falling when he lets go but underwear remaining, pressing his package forward as his cock bobs inches from Daryl's crumpled face.

“Daryl...”

Daryl doesn't look at him. Seems transfixed by the sight in front of him, is–, is fucking _drooling_ , has to pull the saliva back into his mouth with his tongue, and Rick wants so badly to fist his own cock and press it to Daryl's lips but he doesn't—braces himself on the wall with one hand, his other a heavy presence on Daryl's shoulder as Daryl closes his eyes, mouth dropping open like he's gagging for it and leaning forward to mouth at the side of Rick's shaft.

Rick's had blowjobs before. Lori never enjoyed it much, but in their early days she did it, and before her were the boys in high school—they always praised Rick's cocksucker lips but it was rare they didn't end up on their knees in front of him in the end, pressing him into a bathroom wall smelling of marijuana and spunk until he shot his load down their inexperienced throats. And the girls Shane'd shove him into bedrooms with at parties, who wanted him for practice more than anything, sucking him down like their lives depended on it—

Rick's had blowjobs. He's had his entire dick down peoples' goddamn throats.

But he's never felt a feeling rip through his entire body like the one that does when Daryl's lips close against the length of his shaft.

“Christ,” Rick whispers, gripping Daryl's shoulder tighter as the man's breath washes across Rick's dick, the head smearing pre-cum across Daryl's cheek as he presses his face against it like he's worried his mouth won't be enough and it's driving Rick mad–

He takes his hand off Daryl's shoulder and grips the man's hair, stilling him, tilting him up until he's looking Rick in the eye, the roughness of his scruff still prickling Rick's shaft. He looks so unsure, so _helpless_ —and it sends a spike of heat through Rick's body even as something deep in his heart begins to pound.

“Use your hands,” he says, managing not to croak, waiting until Daryl's raised his hands to hover around Rick's hips before turning his head back down towards Rick's groin. Rick groans softly when he feels that harsh breath on his sensitive skin, groans again when Daryl's rough hand closes around the base of his shaft, gives him a short stroke. “That's it,” Rick says, trying not to pant. “Put it in your mouth. Put it in your mouth now...”

Daryl's entire body seems to be vibrating as he closes his eyes, gripping Rick's dick just the right side of painful as he pushes his head forward, lips closing sloppily over the head. Rick curses, the arm balanced against the wall almost collapsing when he hears Daryl moan—a real moan, high and desperate, and it makes Rick want to be a little bit cruel.

Using all the strength he can muster he pushes Daryl away, the other man's back bumping against the wall as he looks up at Rick in confusion.

“What–“

He's silenced when Rick takes hold of his own dick and slaps it across Daryl's face.

“This what you want?” Rick hisses, slapping him again as Daryl stares up at him, wide eyed and broken. “You want it, you fucking cocksucker? You fucking take it. C'mon, Dixon, take me in your goddamn mouth–“

Daryl's teeth catch against Rick when he lunges for him this time, and Rick's hand lands across Daryl's cheek in an open-handed slap. Daryl doesn't let go of Rick's dick this time, though; grabs Rick's hips and sucks him in, moaning again as Rick slides over his tongue.

And Rick moans himself, because it's good; it's so good, and not because Daryl's experienced or refined in his technique. He's terrible—teeth bumping and unable to find a rhythm but god, he _wants_ it—swipes his tongue at whatever he can reach, sucking Rick's dick as far towards his throat as he can before he chokes.

Rick brings the hand from Daryl's shoulder and rests it on his head. Daryl looks up at him, a kind of peace come across his face that Rick has never—he's never seen Daryl like this. Flayed apart, open, utterly unselfconscious, spit and precum dribbling down his chin and staining his shirt. Rick takes the moment to pause; shift his stance, re-situate his hand against the wall, twine his fingers in Daryl's hair until he's almost petting him.

“Good,” he whispers. “Good.”

Daryl starts moving again.

With Rick's hand in his hair it's easier to find a rhythm and hold it, and soon he's speeding up without Rick's help, bobbing his head up and down as Rick's hips begin to move, catching against Daryl's gagging throat every other thrust. Daryl's hands migrate from Rick's hips to clutch his ass and pull him still closer and Rick watches openmouthed as more and more of his dick disappears between Daryl's lips.

“Yes, yes,” he pants, hardly recognizing his own voice but far past caring, feeling only the slick of Daryl's lips, his slipping tongue, feeling his eyes on Rick like he's looking for something, like of all the possible things he could be doing right now this is the only one he wants: to be sandwiched between Rick and the wall of their two bedroom apartment, head bouncing off that wall when he isn't careful, hands gripping Rick's ass like a pair of life preserves and his eyes—his eyes bright with tears from the pressure on his throat and something else, some release he's been looking for that only Rick can give.

Rick gives a few more thrusts, practically falling into Daryl with each one, so close his chest is only inches from the wall, forehead resting on it as he stares Daryl in the eyes and comes.

It's everything that's been building since this afternoon with Beth in the car, since he sucked Daryl's finger into his mouth, since Lori kicked him out of his own goddamn place and into this man's hands—it all explodes, cracking through him like a whip as he grabs Daryl's hair in a way that must be painful, holding him in place as his eyes widen and Rick's cum floods his mouth, some going down his throat and some dribbling out the corner of his lips and Daryl closes his tear-reddened eyes and _drinks_ it, bringing a hand from Rick's ass to cup his pulsing balls, making Rick gasp and thrust again, his last few spurts filling Daryl's mouth as he pulls back till only the head rests on Daryl's tongue and he can breathe in heaving breaths around it.

It's over in moments and Rick's knees buckle, softening dick sliding from Daryl's mouth as he sinks to the floor in front of him. Daryl's still looking at him in that way—like he's a little boy that's done bad and he's waiting for whatever punishment Rick is waiting to give.

Rick looks at him, then looks down, at his own dick wet and hanging obscenely outside his pants, and Daryl—fuck, he's even thicker hard than he is soft and Rick doesn't think before reaching down to undo Daryl's jeans.

“Rick,” Daryl croaks, and the thought that Rick's dick did that to Daryl's voice make Rick's balls give another spasm, “Rick, you don't gotta–“

“Shut up,” Rick says, not unkindly. His hand is only trembling a little when he gets it around Daryl's cock; pulls it out and ignores Daryl's shaking need, the swollen purple head and the knowledge that he got this hard just from sucking Rick off—pulls it out and stares at it, thick and hard and Daryl, the Daryl he suspects he's wanted from the first moment they met, the Daryl he'd never thought he'd have—and Rick looks into the man's eyes, Daryl's lost little boy eyes, and spits in his own hand before he begins to tug on Daryl's dick.

Daryl gasps at the contact, head bending forward to rest against Rick's neck as he grasps his shoulder alongside, and Rick can't see Daryl's face but he knows his eyes are open and watching every movement Rick makes.

It's over quickly, quickly enough that Rick knows Daryl will be embarrassed but that at this point he doesn't care—watches Daryl's cum wash across Rick's tanned skin, dribbling down around his watch and along his veins like the makings of a second bloodstream.

He cradles Daryl's softening dick in his hand as he listens to the sounds of the room—the muffled rumble of cars going by outside, the deafening heave of Daryl's breath, choppy almost like he's crying—and Rick moves his torso back and Daryl raises his head and Rick sees that he is, he is crying, tears of release and relief and something overwhelmed streaming down his face, wetting the cum dried around his mouth. He stares at Rick, sniffing in deeply, thin lips trembling.and spit soaked.

“Rick–“

Rick kisses him.

Rick knows what his own cum tastes like and he isn't afraid of it, but it still gives him an electric shock to know he's licking it off Daryl's tongue—Daryl who tries to pull away at first, whose lips remain pressed closed until Rick growls and grabs his neck, smearing cum along Daryl's collarbone until his lips fall open and Rick can kiss the life out of him. Like with everything else Daryl seems unpracticed, but Rick doesn't care; Daryl's own hands come up, and by the time they come apart they're grasping each other's necks, shoulders, cheeks, foreheads pressed together as they catch their breath, kneeling together against the wall with their dicks hanging from their pants and the air heavy and trembling between them.

“Rick,” Daryl says again, little more than a whisper, and Rick kisses him in answer—not like the last kiss, not invasive or passionate or sexy; just a press of lips to lips, and this time Daryl doesn't hesitate in answering.

Rick pulls back, breath washing across Daryl's mouth as Daryl's breath washes across his. They're both filthy—covered in cum and spit and sweat, and Rick can smell them together, and he doesn't want to smell anything else.

“Rick,” Daryl says again. His forehead is pressed to Rick's; his eyes are closed; his large rough hands spread across Rick's shoulders as if they're the only things keeping him upright. And they might be.

“This mean you're staying?” Rick asks.

Daryl snorts, his body starting to tremble and Rick wraps his arms around him more fully. He's almost surprised when Daryl reciprocates, hugging him with his considerable strength, mouth pressed into the crook of Rick's neck. He feels the syllables of each word before he hears them, and when he does he closes his eyes and holds Daryl tighter.

“I'm staying,” Daryl says. “Fuck. Fuck, Rick, I'm staying.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the aftermath for Daryl and Rick, and neither man is particularly adept at dealing with fallout. They’ll have to find neutral ground somehow, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning for a brief reference to rape at the beginning of the chapter (there is NO actual rape in the story).**
> 
> This was originally going to be the beginning of a much longer chapter, but I'm splitting it in two because I'm an asshole. I mean, I honestly think it reads better this way, but. I'm also an asshole.
> 
> The next chapter _is_ written, though, so it will be up in a day or so. 
> 
> (Reviews make it go up faster (: )
> 
> Thank you so much to exoticdeviance for beta'ing <3

Rick leaves Daryl alone to clean up, watching the man vanish into the bathroom before Rick drifts to the kitchen, washes his hands and realizes they're trembling.

 _It wasn't supposed to happen like this_ , he thinks, and realizes in the next moment that thinking such things means this was always inevitable. Inevitable that he and Daryl would come together, the time and place variant but the result always the same: Daryl likely having the freak-out of his life, Rick wondering if he isn't doing the same. This is his friend, his best friend who he practically raped against the wall–

 _He wanted it_ , Rick's mind whispers, _Jesus Christ, he was_ gagging _for it._ _Falling to his knees, practically opening his throat to you, making those fucking noises like you could do whatever you wanted however you wanted and he would lie there and take it–_

Rick realizes the shaking in his hands is getting worse, so he clenches them into fists. Stares at his knuckles, the still-fading scars of a fistfight he'd gotten into at a bar after Lori left him... he'd be in jail now if Daryl hadn't pulled him out of there. It would look fucking bad, a cop arrested for a bar brawl. Really fucking bad. Bad enough he doubts he could get work as a cop ever again. And Daryl saved him from that. Sped away from the bar in his pickup truck, pulled up alongside a dirt road and silently handed Rick a rag to clean himself up with. Daryl's always doing things like that, Rick thinks—taking care of him. And they've just discovered another way he can do that.

Rick snorts and walks to his own bedroom, shedding clothes as he goes until he's naked, boxer briefs stained with precum on the floor, sitting on the edge of his bed with his legs spread and elbows on his knees, running one hand over the scruff of his jaw. Ethics aside, it was... fuck, it was amazing, wasn't it? No one besides himself had touched his cock since before Lori left him— _long_ before Lori left him—and Daryl's hot mouth around him... it made him forget about Beth for a while. And in remembering her he gets this horrible spike of anxiety as if he's done her a disservice this night.

But they aren't together. They never were together. They almost fucked in the backseat of his car and divine providence stopped them, because they never could have worked. He and Daryl, though... if he can get through the man's self-destructive instinct, his insecurity, whatever homophobia is still lingering from his upbringing... maybe...

“Rick?”

Rick looks up and sees Daryl at the door. Rick'd left the door open and Daryl's standing there in his sleep-shirt and boxers, staring Rick so hard in the face Rick knows that Daryl is trying to ignore Rick's nakedness. Rick knows he should cover up, for Daryl's sake if not for his own, but he doesn't; doesn't move any more than it takes to give Daryl his attention, meet his eyes as neutrally as he can.

“Yeah?” he says, as if this were any other day, any other night, any other person standing nervously at his bedroom door.

Daryl is silent for a long time, fingers twitching like he wants to bring a thumb to his mouth but is too aware of Rick's scrutiny to do so. After about a minute his eyes do drop to Rick's lap; drop like a stone from a great height, Rick thinks, the way Daryl's eyes settle on Rick's cock, flaccid and exhausted from everything that's happened this day. It dangles unassumingly between Rick's legs and Daryl almost seems confused looking at it, like Rick's body is confounding him in ways it never has before.

Or maybe it always has. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe Daryl's always been looking at Rick like this, but the possibility of the two of them was so far from Rick's mind that he never even considered it. Now that possibility is throbbing behind his eyes, if not between his legs, and he moves his gaze to Daryl's crotch just to make it even.

More than that. Because he's snuck glances at Daryl but he's never really _looked_ , and although the loose boxers don't show much they show enough and Rick wants to touch him. Not sexually, he doesn't think; it doesn't feel sexual, and it doesn't excite him. But he wants to touch Daryl and for Daryl not to be afraid of it. To like it, maybe, the way Rick always liked when Lori rested her hand on his shoulder when they were out together. He wants him to feel safe.

“I was thinking...” Daryl says, and Rick looks back up at him, sees Daryl's face suffused in red. “I... I dunno if it's ok, or... if it's... I...”

“Daryl,” Rick says. “What is it?”

“You want me to sleep here?”

Daryl flings out the words like they're hurting his mouth. His face goes slack once he's released them, almost like he's surrendering from a fight he expects to come. Daryl’s fingers are still twitching, and as Rick remains silent he finally gives in, one hand shooting to his mouth and his thumbnail disappearing between his lips.

“Do _you_ want to?” Rick asks.

Daryl shrugs, avoids Rick's eyes. “Thought... after what we did... thought that's what happens...”

And Rick's heart breaks a little. Because Beth might be a teenager but Daryl is acting like a scared child. Nothing like the man who fell to his knees before Rick's dick, took it between his lips like gospel. Or maybe right now they're one and the same, this man and this child who looks ready to fly out of his own skin.

“Sometimes,” Rick says, as gently as he can. “It's your choice.” Rick pauses, rolls the idea over in his mind, and finds himself smiling a little. He didn't expect that. “I'd like it if you did.”

“You would?” Daryl asks. Rick nods. Daryl shifts on his bare feet, then steps across the threshold into Rick's room, the breath rushing out of him like he's pushed his way through something.

Rick stands and Daryl freezes, gaze darting from Rick's hands to his eyes.

“I'm gonna brush my teeth,” Rick says. He nods towards the bed, messily made from that morning. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Daryl nods haltingly, and visibly stops himself from flinching when Rick brushes past him to leave the room, go to the bathroom and close the door.

Rick leans against the door for a moment, staring into space, then pushes himself forward, almost stumbles to the sink. He looks at himself in the mirror and exhales slowly.

He looks so different from the man he'd seen in his rearview mirror. Skin looser on his face, bones standing out less sharply, the cut of his eyes softened—an orgasm, he supposes, can do that to you.

But his lips are also red, redder than usual, red and swollen even though it's been at least ten minutes since they'd kissed. He brushes a sensitive pink spot on his cheek that he recognizes as beard burn. He hasn't seen that on himself in a long time.

He thinks of Daryl sinking to his knees—he can't stop thinking of it, it's on loop in his head. Implacable.

How Daryl looked emptied when his knees hit the floor. How his shoulders relaxed completely for the first time since Rick's known him, how he stared at Rick's crotch like it contained some kind of salvation, how he fumbled in his desperation, how he looked with his eyes turned up towards Rick, like he was... happy, or something, or–

Grateful. He looked grateful. Thankful for the chance to suck Rick's cock. To feel Rick's fingers in his hair, guiding him and affirming him as Rick groaned above, approved his work. Like a kindergartner bringing a drawing home from class, seeking his father's praise.

Rick shivers violently, closing his eyes and inhaling through his nose. Daryl isn't a child, and he isn't going to treat him like one. But still. Part of him liked it, the wave of power he felt with Daryl on his knees, looking to please. Looking to please _him._ Rick had never seen that look in anyone's eyes before. Like Rick is the only one they would kneel to.

He wonders what Daryl would do with Beth. Would he fall to his knees too? Or bear her into the bed and plunder her tiny body? Would he want Rick on one end while he took the other? Would Daryl look at her like he looked at Rick, like Rick was his ruin and his salvation wrapped into one? Or would it be something kinder, sweeter, something like teenagers? Rick wouldn't mind seeing that.

Rick exhales sharply and turns on the tap, splashing his face with water before pulling out his toothbrush and doing what he came in here to do. He pisses, after, and walks out of the bathroom without looking at himself again.

He pauses before he reaches the bedroom, wonders if he should put some underwear on. If it would put Daryl at ease a little, to have that layer between them.

He could ask. They're still friends. He could ask.

He walks to the door of the bedroom and peers in. Daryl is in Rick's bed, sheets pulled nearly to his chin, one arm pressed against the wall with its thumb at his mouth and the other arm behind his head. He isn't using the pillow. He looks supremely uncomfortable, staring at the ceiling like he wants it to fall and crush him.

And Rick decides no. No, he won't ask; no, he won't put anything on. Because Daryl's there thinking a million thoughts, likely running every moment of the past hour over in his head, questioning himself, questioning Rick, wondering how he should behave now. That, Rick knows he's thinking about. Daryl studies people. Rick does the same—he's trained for it, after all—but not in the way Daryl does. Like he lives and dies by the cues others give him, like he never wants to do anything but what's expected of him.

Rick thinks sometimes that Daryl forgets to worry around him; fancies, more like, because Rick wants to feel special in Daryl's eyes. He always has, even if it took him a long time to recognize it. Before he ever wanted Daryl sexually he wanted him to trust him.

Rick realizes that as he's stood there thinking Daryl has noticed his presence. His hand has gone from his mouth to his stomach, rising and falling slowly with his breath. He meets Rick's eyes—wary, but with a question. Always a question.

Rick walks in and grabs his phone, sets the alarm, checks that he has no calls from Lori or work (or Beth—he's almost, _almost_ disappointed he has nothing from Beth) before crawling into bed. He tries to act like it's any other night: settles against the pillow with a sigh, making sure to leave plenty of room for Daryl. He knows Daryl will notice—Daryl notices everything.

And what do you know, a few moments later Rick feels the mattress shift as Daryl moves. Rick turns his head to look at him and Daryl freezes, his head just about to sink into the pillow. They're at each end of the pillow and so are not far apart, and Rick hears Daryl's swallow as Daryl continues settling himself, lying on his side so he can share the pillow without having to touch Rick.

Rick decides to ignore that, for now. But he can't help it, now that he's allowed, now that he thinks he's allowed—he puts his hand on Daryl's cheek and moves forward, kissing Daryl solidly on the lips. Daryl is only just beginning to respond when Rick pulls away. He stays close, though; hand on Daryl's cheek, head in the middle of the pillow, turned towards him under the sheets.

“This ok?” Rick asks. He strokes Daryl's cheekbone with his thumb. Daryl's eyes flutter like they want to close, and Rick could swear he's keeping himself from nuzzling into Rick's palm. “This ok, Daryl?”

“Yeah,” Daryl says. And something seems to pass through him then, because the tension in his shoulders releases and suddenly he's lying there like they've done this every night since Rick moved in. Daryl puts a hand on top of Rick's on his cheek, turns his head to flutter a hesitant kiss against Rick's palm. Rick smiles, chuckles softly. Daryl returns the smile, if not the chuckle. They release Daryl's cheek at the same moment and Rick turns around to sleep on the side he prefers. There's a moment of stillness, and then Daryl shuffles too. Not spooning him, not quite; but Rick can feel the ghost of breath on the back of his neck, the pressure of knuckles on his back.

Daryl's barely touching him, but as Rick closes his eyes and nuzzles into the pillow, feels the mattress give under his weight and the sheets curve around his body, he finds he doesn't feel quite as alone.

He'll take it. That, he'll take.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two men wake up together for the first time, but Rick's already making plans to add another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning for a line of dirty talk that suggests dub-con fantasy.**
> 
> Thank you so much to all my lovely reviewers and readers. I love to hear what y'all think, especially as the story becomes more emotionally complicated. The more reviews, the faster we get to the good stuff ;)
> 
> Thank you Nikki for your beta'ing job and encouragement <3

Rick's body twitches as it drifts towards wakefulness. He's on his side like he remembers falling asleep, but Lori isn't sleeping on the other side of the bed this time. She's plastered against him—draped across him—cuddling him like her own teddy bear, her limbs weightier than he remembers, her breathing heavier in his ear, but it still makes him smile. Almost makes him wish Carl were still young enough not to know that a closed bedroom door bars him entry. This is what he should see of his parents. Not the fighting or the silences or having to choose between them. There is no between them now. Rick takes hold of Lori's hand and tucks it with his underneath his body, feels an exhale on the back of his neck.

Rick's phone is ringing, which is inconvenient. He knows he needs to get up—it could be the station, or maybe Daryl's brother's gotten into some trouble again—but he wants to hold onto sleep for a few more moments. Even when Lori begins shaking him he mumbles sleepily, holding her hand tighter, pressing back until he feels her hard against his ass...

Rick's eyes flicker open. He sees his phone flashing at him from the night table he and Daryl had gotten for ten bucks at some antique store; the solid navy sheets that Lori would have hated—white sheets, she liked white sheets because she could always pretend she was at a hotel—he feels Daryl shaking him again, more insistently. He's pulled his hips back but Rick can still feel the ghost of Daryl's cock between his asscheeks.

“Rick,” Daryl mumbles, winding himself around Rick tighter like he's trying to squeeze him awake, “Answer the damn phone.”

“A'right,” Rick slurs, letting go of Daryl's hand to reach for it, having to slap around a few times before his sleep-blurred eyes center on the phone.

He uses that time to come to terms with his surroundings. This isn't his marriage bed; Carl isn't down the hall or in the living room waiting for his parents to get up and make him breakfast. He's in a two bedroom apartment with his best friend sleeping beside him—practically on top of him, really, like he's trying to pin Rick to the mattress—and the night before he got his cock sucked for the first time in years.

Daryl's grown a little less shy, or a little more bold at least, and has brought his hips back in line with Rick's ass. It distracts Rick as he grabs the phone—makes him forget to check the caller ID because who could remember something like that with a cotton-covered cock sliding up and down between his ass cheeks in small, nudging movements—and when he answers he's adrift in a haze of sleep and sex.

“Hello?” he says.

“Rick?”

Rick freezes, and Daryl freezes with him. Rick realizes that Daryl is close enough to hear the other end of the line clearly, and he briefly considers getting up—but something in the tightness of Daryl's arms around him tells Rick to stay where he is.

“Beth,” he says, clearing his throat to try and remove some of the roughness. “Are you ok?”

“Am–, yeah, yeah, I'm fine.” A pause. “I'm not waking you up, am I? I didn't–, oh shoot, I didn't realize how early it is–“

“It's fine,” Rick says.

“Oh. Ok.” There's silence for a few moments, and Rick flashes back to images from his youth—his mother on the phone, twirling the cord between her fingers. Beth's phone won't have a cord, no phones do anymore, but she might be twirling her hair, a stray piece of string. He wonders if she's in bed too, or at her kitchen table where light must stream in at this hour. He waits for her to speak again. “I... I wanted to apologize about yesterday.”

Rick feels Daryl shift behind him and he realizes he never told Daryl about what almost happened in the back seat of his car.

“You don't need to–“

“No, I...” Beth trails off. Rick can hear her breathing through the line. When she speaks again it's so sudden he almost jumps. “I don't know what you want me to say. So I'm just gonna say the truth, ok?”

Rick swallows, heart beating fast. “Alright.”

“I'm sorry my sister interrupted us. And I'm sorry everything after that was so awkward. But I'm not sorry it happened. I'm... I'm sorry we didn't finish. And I wanna make it up to you.”

The world stops. Everything stops for Rick, because he can _hear_ himself answering her— _Come on over now and we'll see if you really mean that—_ but he chokes it down, knows that that isn't the man she's calling, isn't what she means; Christ, of _course_ she doesn't mean that ( _but what if she does? What if she knows exactly what she's saying and exactly what you're feeling and seeing and imagining and how good she'd look with your cock halfway down her throat and mascara and spit and tears coursing down her face_ ) _she doesn't mean that_. But Daryl is there too, and Rick feels him settle against the pillow behind him, his breath on Rick's neck again–

Rick is hard. Raging hard and caught between them.

“I'd like that,” he manages, voice low and rough and he hears her gasp over the line just as Daryl's hand lands on his hip; rubs a tentative circle with his thumb as he leans forward and kisses Rick's shoulder, higher on his shoulder, his neck—and Rick knows he has to end this phone call.

“Wanna meet in the park on Saturday?” Rick asks, pressing against Daryl as he speaks, feeling Daryl's hard-on run between Rick's asscheeks again. “The one near our apartment. Have a picnic or something.”

“That'd be nice,” Beth says.

Rick has no idea what his voice sounds like anymore or if she can hear the two sets of heavy breathing coming from his bed, but she sounds so completely and utterly normal that he wants to shock her.

“You mind if Daryl tags along?”

Daryl's ministrations cease and silence rings through the phone line. Rick leans until his back is flush with Daryl's chest, telling him to wait, wait—and still Beth says nothing.

“Beth?”

“Yeah,” she says—breathes, she _breathes_ , just like she did when he touched her pussy, “Yeah, sounds good.”

“Good,” Rick says. “Around three?”

“Yeah.” She's gotten some of her composure back, which Rick isn't happy with at all—although it amuses him to imagine what it's taking her to pull herself back together—and she clears her throat before continuing. “I'll bring blankets and food and stuff. It'll be fun.”

“Yeah,” Rick says, closing his eyes and taking hold of his own dick, enjoying the feeling of it pulsing under his palm. “See you then, Beth.”

“See you,” she whispers, and hangs up.

Rick makes sure the call is really disconnected, then tosses the phone onto the night table and turns over, making sure to drag his ass against Daryl's hard-on as he does, and when he's facing the man he fists his hands in Daryl's hair and leans forward and kisses him roughly.

Rick didn't realize how much he missed this—the intimacy of kissing the morning breath out of someone and not caring if they taste his own, the feeling of a burning body pressed against his—but Daryl isn't returning the kiss as enthusiastically as Rick expects. Rick keeps trying, licking into Daryl's mouth, tangling their tongues and drawing Daryl's into his mouth to suck on it, but still Daryl is hardly moving. Rick pulls back, their lips making a rough _smack_ as they part, relaxing his hands in Daryl's hair but not letting go.

“Daryl?” he asks, restless with the throb of his dick and how good Daryl smells—how did he ignore for so long how good Daryl smells–

“Why'd you do that?” Daryl asks.

Rick frowns, bringing a hand down to cup Daryl's cheek, run across his jaw, feel the hair of Daryl's beard rasp against his fingers. “Do what?”

“You know,” Daryl says. He grabs Rick's wandering hand, trapping it against his own throat. He swallows when Rick sweeps his thumb up and down.

Rick leans closer, sucking a kiss into Daryl's jaw before whispering in his ear, “You're gonna have to be more specific.”

“Inviting me along,” Daryl says. Rick can hear him struggling to keep his voice steady and Rick grins, scraping his teeth against Daryl's ear. “Being... Rick, you're fucking in bed with me and you're askin' out this girl...”

Daryl trails off and Rick pulls away so he can see Daryl's head fall back, lips pinched together and eyes closed as Rick reaches inside Daryl’s boxers and wraps his hand around Daryl’s dick.

“You wanna worry about that now, Daryl?” Rick asks. He looks, watches as he pulls Daryl's foreskin down, sees the head pop out and imagines tying Daryl to the bed and licking that reddening head until the man is crying for him to end it–

He imagines Beth there with them. Lying against the pillows and fucking herself or right down there with Rick, taking Daryl's balls into her mouth one at a time and licking up his shaft while Rick teases his slit. Rick imagines scooping out the wet between her legs and using it to slick Daryl's dick—having Beth ride him until he's sopping, making the glide easier, making her taste herself and Daryl together when Rick grips her hair and forces her mouth down and down and down...

God it's fucked up. _He's_ fucked up. Not like that's news to Rick, but it's never made itself so pronounced before. Never felt like something in reach. Like he can let someone see that part of him and fuck the consequences.

He never could with Lori. God, no. They'd been each other's firsts, lovers since high school, locked in the routine that such an intimacy breeds. And then Carl was born and Rick's fantasies were put on hold because Jesus Christ, thinking like that about the mother of his child–

But he has a fresh start now. Fresh people too. And fuck does Daryl feel good in his palm.

“You telling me you never thought about it, Daryl? Being with her? You told me you did. You practically told me.”

Daryl is breathing heavily as Rick finds a rhythm, body hitching when Rick swipes his thumb over Daryl's head to catch more pre-cum, more glide, brings it down along the shaft until drops glisten in Daryl's pubic hair. Daryl is fully hard now, foreskin retracted on its own, and Rick pants into Daryl's face as he presses their foreheads together.

“Touch my dick, Daryl... I know you want to–“

“You so sure of yourself, Rick Grimes?” Daryl asks. Rick pulls his head back a bit to catch Daryl's expression, and it's... it's almost normal. Nervous, still, and flushed with arousal, but also looking at Rick in a way that challenges him. If Daryl had more control of his facial muscles at the moment, Rick suspects he'd have an eyebrow raised.

And Rick smiles. Not the shark-like, predatory smile he's felt spread across his face all too often the past two days. A genuine smile, friend to friend. He takes his hand from Daryl's throat and with both hands helps Daryl pull his boxers down and off, then kisses his neck while running his hands up Daryl's softly rounded stomach.

“Touch my dick,” Rick whispers, thrusting hard against Daryl's hip. Daryl is rubbing off on Rick too, almost beside himself, head tilted back on the pillow and mouth open and hand holding Rick's thigh in a death grip. “Get me off, baby,” Rick whispers, sucking Daryl's earlobe into his mouth.

And Daryl does. Too roughly at first but Rick doesn't tell him that; just surges into Daryl's fist, groaning loudly in Daryl's ear. Daryl's hand isn't moving much but it doesn't matter—just having that pressure, just knowing it's Daryl's big hand wrapped around his cock, is pushing him towards orgasm faster than he's ready for. Cause there's something else to do, his brain supplies, as he reaches for Daryl too.

Daryl hisses at the contact, hips jerking and hand squeezing to the edge of painful again as Rick begins to stroke him. They're still on the same pillow but they can see each other clearly enough, and Rick wonders what Daryl sees; wonders if he's seeing anything, with the pleasure so blinding.

“She could be here, Daryl,” Rick whispers. Daryl's clumsy rhythm falters, but speeds up quickly when Rick twists Daryl's dick hard in displeasure. Daryl looks confused again, nervous again, but he doesn't push Rick away. “We do a good job on Saturday, just think about it—she's doing whatever you want her to do, whatever _we_ want... what do you want from her Daryl? Tell me.”

Daryl's breath is labored in a way that suggests his orgasm is close, and Rick slows down his strokes, feels Daryl's hand on Rick's own dick slow to the same rhythm. A bead of sweat is rolling down Daryl's forehead and Rick would lick it up but he wants to hear what Daryl says.

He half expects Daryl to say nothing—Daryl isn't verbose at the best of times, and half-delirious with Rick's hand on his dick isn't anywhere near that kind of best—so when Daryl begins to speak Rick almost forgets he's supposed to be stroking him.

“Wanna kiss her,” Daryl says, experimentally swiping his palm across the head of Rick's cock and mouth twitching when Rick hisses, “Her mouth—fucking amazing mouth, fuck–“

“You want it on your dick, Daryl?” Rick breathes, leaning in close.

“Yeah,” Daryl whispers like they're clouded in dark, “Yeah, sucking me... wanna get her off with just my hands on her tits till she's fucking gushing–“

“What about me?” Rick whispers, hand jerking Daryl's foreskin up and down.

“She's riding you,” Daryl says, the final syllable twisting into a moan as Rick strokes him exactly right, “She's riding–, and I'm behind her with my hand on her clit, suckin' her neck and _fuck_ –“

“Wanna take care of her, Daryl? Like you took care of me?”

He sees the memories of the night before flash across Daryl's face, feels them in the way Daryl's hand tightens–

“Yeah,” Daryl whispers, a little shaky, a little scared, and Rick cards his fingers through Daryl's hair so he can pull him forward and kiss him.

“You took care of me so good,” Rick whispers against Daryl's mouth, their hands moving in unison, getting closer, closer—“You were so good, Daryl, Beth's gonna think you're so good–“

Rick feels the moment Daryl goes rigid and makes sure to get their mouths together as Daryl comes with a whine that rolls into a growl, lips open under Rick's kiss as Rick feels liquid spurt between them.

Daryl's hand doesn't slow down, though—if anything, it speeds up, sweeping up and down as he gasps for breath and swipes his thumb across Rick's swollen head until Rick shouts, leans down and sinks his teeth into Daryl's shoulder as his cum joins Daryl's between them.

* * *

They come down together. Softening dicks held loosely in their hands. Rick feels Daryl rub his thumb up and down Rick's shaft a few times, making Rick's spent dick twitch, and if it were anyone else he'd think Daryl was teasing him.

But he's Daryl, and he isn't; and when Rick lets go of Daryl's dick to wind an arm around Daryl's body, Daryl follows, resting his palm on the bed between their chests. Rick pulls back a little and looks at Daryl's shoulder, feels something deep inside him shiver when he sees the bite mark he's dug into Daryl's flesh—but then he's lapping at it, soothing the inflamed skin, smiling when Daryl hums in thanks. When Rick's done he joins Daryl on the pillow, pulling up the twisted and soaked sheets until at least their bottom halves are covered. Daryl murmurs again, and pushes closer, the hand between them coming up to sling over Rick's waist, holding them gently together.

Rick knows Daryl has work at some point today. Hell, Rick does too.

It doesn't stop him from pulling Daryl's face into his throat so Daryl can curl up against him. It doesn't stop him from threading his cum-stained fingers through Daryl's hair, scratching at his scalp until Daryl rumbles deep in his chest like a cat.

It doesn’t stop him from closing his own eyes, feeling Daryl's breath on his collarbone, the scratch of his sleep shirt, the warm weight of Daryl's soft cock on his thigh.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick, Daryl, and Beth go on their picnic, and the situation is about as complicated as one would expect it to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty sure there aren't any warnings for this one (amazing, right?). I hope you enjoy, and remember to let me know what you think :)

Saturday comes with a rapidity that neither of them expects, and it seems like only one giant step from jerking each other off in bed to sitting together on a park bench, knees grazing and Rick's arm slung across the bench behind Daryl's head. Daryl's been chain smoking practically since they woke up, and his hair is still wet from the shower Rick forced him to take before they came to meet Beth. Daryl still smells faintly of ash and smoke, but only if you get close, and he'd made it pretty clear with his body language that he doesn't want Rick doing that in public just yet.

Rick tried at first. When they finally dragged themselves from bed that first morning to discover the cupboards had become embarrassingly bare in their dance around each other, they'd gone to the market; and feeling loose and relaxed from his orgasms and long sleep, Rick had leaned over to kiss Daryl's cheek in the middle of the produce section. Daryl jerked so violently that he nearly sent a display of oranges toppling down, and when their eyes met before Daryl's red-faced glance away, Rick began to learn the rules of this new thing between them.

Shortly after they returned home Rick realized he was late for work, and dashed out of the apartment with barely a goodbye. He spent the whole shift worried and distracted, and Shane noticed, because of course he did. Started rambling about how bad Rick needs a woman, needs to get his rocks off, needs to let loose and let go—but it went in one ear and out the other for Rick. All he could think of was the look on Daryl's face just before he vanished behind the closing front door.

 _Like a dog worried his owner wouldn't come back_ , Rick kept thinking, and he didn't like considering the two of them in those terms but it was true. He should have sat Daryl down after the market, work be damned. He should have talked to him, seen what his side of all this was. Asked if he wanted to keep doing it, cause Rick sure as hell did. Even if it was only in the privacy of their apartment, he wanted it. And Daryl needed to know that.

But Daryl wasn't home when Rick's shift ended, because of course Daryl's own shift didn't end until after midnight.

Rick stayed up flicking through channels on the TV until Daryl did get back, smelling of oil and engine grease. Rick stood from the sofa when the door opened, ignored the Food Network playing in the background as he locked eyes with Daryl and walked across the room and kissed him hard. And Daryl kissed back, kissed with something like relief, and in the mania of stripping each other's clothes they didn't even make it to the bedroom—just sank to the sofa and jerked each other off to the sounds of Bobby Flay teaching them how to make gourmet omelettes.

And it went on like that—barely touching in public and fucking each other silly at home and now they're going to meet Beth in the park at 3pm and Daryl, as per usual, has barely looked at Rick since they left the apartment.

Rick's fingers are close to the ends of Daryl's hair—still damp from his shower, clean and puffing a little after its rare wash. He wants to touch him—just the ends of his hair, touch him there—ghost his fingers along the back of his neck until he shivers despite the heat. Rick could do it, he knows. Daryl would want to draw as little attention to the two of them as possible; would sit like a stone while Rick teased him, betrayed only by his pale lips and flushed ears.

But as much as Rick want to help Daryl lighten the fuck up, he knows he needs to go at Daryl's pace. Just because Rick's a divorced horn-dog with a new plaything doesn't mean Daryl even wants that level of attention.

But damn it, Rick does. He wants to touch him. Hold his hand. Put his palm over Daryl's scarred knuckles.

Daryl's chewing at his thumbnail with a vengeance and, holding his breath, Rick reaches up and takes hold of Daryl's wrist, tugs it down between them and in the journey slides his hand down to wrap around Daryl's. It's an awkward hold, but mostly hidden from the rest of the park by their legs, and Rick looks at the picture their two hands makes together while he feels the heat of Daryl's eyes on his face.

Eventually he does look up and Daryl's still looking at him. Rick expects fury, or discomfort, but Daryl merely looks... curious. Well, he does look a little uncomfortable, but that's pretty much Daryl's default state anyway.

“What?” Rick asks.

“Why'd you do that?” Daryl asks. “Why d'you...” he trails off, shrugging his shoulders in a way that's probably supposed to be meaningful, but which leaves Rick floundering. He simply stares at Daryl until he continues. “The fuck are we doing, Rick?”

Rick shrugs himself. “Does it matter?”

Daryl snorts. “We're here to meet a girl I know you wanna fuck. The fuck're you holding my hand for?”

Rick blinks at him, and at least some of it clicks into place. “You think Beth's gonna change things between us?”

“You need a woman, right?” Daryl says. “Been a long time since Lori. Shane's–, fellas're probably wondering when you're gonna get someone else.”

Rick squeezes Daryl's hand. “I _have_ someone else.”

Daryl stares at him like he's got a screw loose. “What, you're gonna take me to retirement parties and shit? Governor's ball or whatever?”

“If you want to.”

Daryl doesn't blink for a long time. It's a little disconcerting, but Rick's used to disconcerting; he deals with disconcerting every day. Instead of letting Daryl stare him down, he squeezes Daryl's hand and leans forward, brushing a kiss across his cheek. Daryl doesn't flinch, but he's holding himself stiffly enough that Rick knows he wants to.

“We can do whatever you want,” Rick whispers. Daryl shivers a little, and Rick smiles, scratches one nail down Daryl's palm. “Just gotta tell me what that is.”

“I don't know,” Daryl whispers.

“Then we won't do anything,” Rick says, sitting back. As he expected, Daryl's eyes are glued to his face, mouth turned sharply down. Rick shrugs. He can't stop himself from smiling. “It's up to you.”

“You're a dick,” Daryl says.

Rick laughs, leaning forward again so his forehead falls against Daryl's. Daryl doesn't move away.

“You love that about me though, right?”

“Fuck...”

Rick swallows the end of Daryl's curse as Daryl closes the distance between them, kissing Rick with something less than the desperation he's used to, but still too much depth for a public park. And Rick knows they're in public—he hasn't forgotten it, even if Daryl might have—and it gives him a small thrill in his chest that they're doing this in the light; Daryl's hand sliding into Rick's hair as he turns his head and deepens the kiss, drawing a moan from Rick when he tucks his tongue under Rick's, gives Rick unfettered access to his mouth. They're still holding hands but their other hands are roaming, Rick's fingers trailing up Daryl's side as he shivers, hooking around his shoulder blade to draw him closer, fisting the ends of his hair until Daryl moans too–

“Someone's gonna call the cops on you, ya know.”

The kiss ends slowly, far more slowly than a less kiss-addled Rick would expect. Daryl even sucks on Rick's lower lip as he pulls away, pulling a murmur from behind Rick's sternum as they come apart, bodies slowly disengaging to look up at the figure before them.

The sun is behind her, and they have to squint to make out her cute yellow sundress, the brown pocketbook dangling from one shoulder and an honest to god picnic basket hanging from the other. Rick's wondering if he needs to explain, but she's smiling—fucking _grinning_ at them, looking like she's seen them kiss a thousand times.

“Yeah? For what?” Rick asks, and even he is a little embarrassed by the hoarseness of his voice.

“I don't think the parks and rec department considers tonsil hockey an acceptable public sport.”

Rick can't help it; he smirks. “Grinding in the backseat of a car is more illegal than kissing, you know.”

It's hard to tell because of the sun, but he swears she goes a little pink at that.

Rick feels Daryl shifting beside him, and Beth turns her attention his way.

“Hey Daryl,” she says, and Rick is surprised at how much gentler her voice sounds.

“Hey,” he mumbles. Rick glances at Daryl and sees his eyes turned down, brows furrowed like he's thinking hard. He hasn't taken his hand out of Rick's, though.

They sit and stand through several more moments of silence, growing more awkward by the second. Beth's looking at the ground now too, feet shuffling and bottom lip caught between her teeth. Rick looks between the two of them and it slams into him, the oddity of what they're doing. The fucking lunacy. If Lori knew this was going on...

 _Lori left you_ , a voice in Rick's head whispers, _Lori left you and put you in Daryl's spare room and now you're fucking him. And no one knows. No one needs to know. And if Beth wants it too..._

And that's the sticking point, isn't it. Rick doesn't know if this half-formed idea in his brain is something she even wants any part of. Hell, he doesn't even know if she's considered it. All he knows is that whenever he's in the cruiser with Shane and his thoughts drift away he and Daryl aren't the only ones in the room.

Maybe that makes him a pervert. He doesn't know. He doesn't know if the fact that there's three of them is any worse than the fact that she's so much younger. That he met her because she was a fucking robbery victim. Just because the case is closed doesn't mean a relationship with her would be totally ethical.

A relationship. He doesn't know when this went from a fuck to a relationship but he doesn’t think this is the time or place for so much self-reflection.

He looks up at Beth as best he can through the sun and tightens his grip on Daryl's hand so that when Rick stands Daryl follows. Daryl drops Rick's hand as soon as they're standing, but it doesn't bother Rick; makes it a bit better, actually, if they aren't an ironclad couple in Beth's mind. Makes their two-dom easier to enter.

Beth steps back as they rise, giving them room. Now that the sun isn't behind her and Rick can really see her he thanks whatever god is out there that he wore his looser jeans today. Her dress goes down almost to her knees but the straps are skinny, skinny enough to know she isn't wearing a bra. There's some bunched fabric over her breasts but he doesn't think he's imagining the nipples he sees peeking through. Scrunched up and hard like she's cold but he knows she isn't; sees the sweat dripping down from her temples, the dampness beneath her clavicles. Her face is smooth in some places and blotchy in others and she put on makeup, he realizes; she put on makeup for them but in the hot sun it's melting away.

He's examining her so intensely that he jumps a little when Daryl steps forward, hand reaching out awkwardly to take hold of the picnic basket, contorting so as not to touch her skin. Beth smiles at Daryl—again that soft, gentle smile—and lets him take it, rolling her shoulder once he has it.

“Didn't even realize how heavy that was,” she says. She looks between them, the wisps of hair that have escaped the long thick braid down her back swaying around her face. “Y'all wanna find a place to sit?”

They both nod—a bit dumbly, Rick thinks, but god who could blame them—and she gives them a quick smile, spinning around so her dress flutters around her long legs and starting to walk. They follow her like lemmings.

“You ok?” Rick asks Daryl in a low voice even as he keeps his eyes glued to Beth's ass, the sharpness of her shoulder blades. Daryl mumbles something in response that Rick doesn't understand. Rick drags his eyes away from Beth and looks at Daryl. He's all scrunched in on himself, hand white-knuckled around the handle of the basket, and Rick feels the dread deep in his gut—he's going to bolt.

“Daryl–“

“Hey,” Daryl says, loud enough that Beth stops and turns towards him. He seems to blanch under her gaze, but soldiers on. “I–, I gotta go. There's a thing I forgot, it... I got work–“

“Daryl,” Rick says, going to touch his arm, but Beth reaches him first.

She's wearing flats and has to go on her tiptoes, stretching the muscles in her calves as she steps forward and puts her hands on Daryl's chest and presses her mouth against his. Daryl goes stiff as a stone, eyes open and incredulous. Beth brings one hands up, cupping the back of Daryl's neck as her mouth opens and Rick sees flashes of her tongue licking across Daryl's closed, shaking lips.

She draws away, the only sound a group of children playing somewhere in the park, a flock of pigeons cooing. She and Daryl are staring at each other, her hands in place. Daryl's arms didn't move but his grip on the picnic basket is nearly gone; it dangles from the tips of his fingers, tilting his body sideways.

Both men watch as Beth licks her lips, and just before Rick steps forward Daryl's ducking his head and kissing her too. It's quick and awkward, more a peck on the lips than anything, but when he draws back she's grinning ear to ear.

She goes back down to the flats of her feet, pulls her hands away from Daryl's body and straightens her dress like they'd just finished necking in a car...

When Beth turns to Rick there's a bit of mischief in her smile.

“Now we're even. Can we please go eat now?”

* * *

They don't talk much after that. Find a relatively level plot of grass; spread out the blanket that Rick brought and arrange themselves on top of it, Beth at the apex of their triangle and Rick and Daryl the bottom corners of it. Beth unpacks the basket like she's setting up the Last Supper—laying out Tupperware full of chicken salad and fruit and cookies and an entire pile of paper plates, like she was expecting to entertain a party and not just the two of them. Rick and Daryl mostly just stare dumbly as more and more food emerges from the basket. When she reaches the loaf of bread—accompanied by bananas and Nutella—Daryl grabs the basket from beneath her hands and shoves it behind himself.

“Christ, girl, you got the Vatican in there too?”

Beth stares at him, probably surprised that Daryl's said anything at all—then breaks into giggles, her body hunching down and her clavicles practically bursting from her skin.

“I guess I overdid it, huh?”

“Not if your plan was to feed the entire US army,” Rick says, reaching out and grabbing an apple slice.

As he bites into the fruit and tastes the sweet juice explode on his tongue he feels something relax between the three of them. Daryl lowers one of his knees so he isn't so curled in on himself; after a few minutes Rick rolls down to his elbow, stretching out until his feet are by Daryl's hip and his head by Beth's. She's sitting with her knees together, her legs curled behind her. When she looks down at Rick and he looks up he's shocked by the spark he feels in his chest. He wants to sit up and move closer, or urge her to stretch out in front of him with his arm draped over her hip, her ass teasing him as she wiggles into position, giggling as she does. He looks away and grabs another piece of apple before he can follow _that_ train of thought, but looking at Daryl isn't much better; he has some mayonnaise from the chicken salad smeared around the corners of his mouth, and Rick wants to sit up, pull the man closer and lick the sauce away. He can take one side, Beth the other, and they'd all be pressed against each other–

He hears his name and his eyes snap away from Daryl's mouth, looking between the two of them and trying to look like he knows what's going on. Beth's face is neutral but Daryl is looking at him with a smirk and Rick is surprised to feel himself blushing a little.

“What?” he says. “Sorry, I was just... I was lost in thought, what were you saying?”

Daryl snorts and Rick wishes he were just a bit closer so he could kick him.

“Daryl was saying how the two of you met,” Beth says slowly. She seems nonplussed, looking between the two of them like she's waiting to be let in on the joke. Rick feels sorry for her for a moment, then remembers what exactly Daryl is snickering about and finds himself glad she's being left in the dark.

 _You almost had her in the backseat of your car_ , Rick thinks, adjusting his hips so his pants pull a little less. _You really think she'd blush at any of that?_

But Rick doesn't know. She'd made out with him till he was hard and aching and kissed Daryl in front of God and everyone, but he still doesn't know... he doesn't know what she _wants_. If she wants anything like what he does, here on this sunny afternoon where he simultaneously wants to pull her into his side and kiss her cheek, and drag her and Daryl back to the apartment to rip all their clothes off.

But he doesn't know what she wants.

So he'll have to make her want it.

“It was his brother,” Rick says, stretching a hand over his head then reaching down to scratch his stomach. He sees her eyes follow, and linger, and his heart speeds up. “Caught him with enough cocaine it was clear he was trafficking. We thought we'd have to hunt Daryl down but he came in on his own.” He looks at Daryl; sees him looking down, picking at a thread on his jeans. “He tried to convince us some of the coke was his so it'd be split down the middle and they'd both get possession, but without intent to distribute.” Rick smiles when Daryl looks up to meet his eyes. “Daryl isn't a very good liar though.”

Daryl snorts, snagging a cookie. “This fucker found me smoking in the parking lot after and took me for a beer.”

“You looked like you needed one,” Rick says.

“That was nice of you,” Beth says softly.

Rick glances at her and she catches him with her eyes. He blushes under her scrutiny, and is about to look away when she smiles.

“This is what you do then?” she says. “Take in strays after their brushes with the law?”

Rick chuckles. He looks at Daryl and he's smiling too.

“Guess so,” Rick says. “Guess so.”

* * *

She's in their apartment with them and Rick thinks a little of Daryl's jitteriness is getting to him, because he just can't find a spot on the couch that's comfortable.

They hadn't meant to go home when the sun began to set and they had to pack up their picnic. They just started walking; Beth in between them again, her knuckles brushing theirs as their arms swung, her skirt swishing around her legs and her sandals clicking quietly on the sidewalk. Daryl was carrying the picnic basket again, shrugging off Beth's half-hearted attempts to get it back from him; Rick had the blanket bunched under one arm and one eye always on the two people beside him. Thinking. How much he wants them; how their contrast, so big and so small, makes his heart beat faster; how he knows he loves Daryl, knows it even if it isn't romantic love (quite yet), but Beth's the unknown—she could flare up between them like a dying sun and leave them holding carbon and stardust. But for now—they had a day. It was a good day. He enjoyed their company.

And now he and Daryl are on the couch and Beth is in the bathroom, and she's been there for a while. Not a while. Probably not a while. It just feels like a while because one minute they were walking and the next Beth stopped and asked if this wasn't their apartment building. And it was. And she looked at Rick with a blush on her face and asked in a voice meant to sound grown up if she could come in with them. And Rick said yes without even looking at Daryl because he remembers the feeling of her hand on his cock and even if they don't get that far, even if they don't do anything, he didn't want the day to end yet.

It could have. He could have sent her home, gone up with Daryl, jerked each other off until they fell asleep in a tangle of each other. But he would have ended up whispering those fantasies anyway—of Beth with them, but with more detail; how her smell would fill their nostrils, the fresh grass and sweat, how her mouth would taste of chicken salad and how tight they could pull that braid against her head—and so he thought... he didn't think. He invited her up. And she's in the bathroom and he and Daryl are on the sofa and he feels like he's going to twitch right out of his skin.

He looks at Daryl, hopes to ground himself in the other man's anxiety, but in the minutes since they sat down Daryl seems to have calmed. He's sitting loose limbed looking at the ceiling, and when he feels Rick's eyes on him, at Rick, and they stare at each other silently for many moments.

“How you doing?” Rick asks, wanting to play with Daryl's hair but not sure if he wants Beth to see that when she comes out. She caught them making out in public, yes, but this is different; this is him and Daryl, how they are when the world can't see them, and Rick isn't sure of his own feelings on the matter but he suspects Daryl still wants to keep those things separate.

They haven't touched each other since they came inside. They aren't even sitting that close together. It's like they're back to before they were lovers, except they _are_ lovers, of a sort, and Rick feels that fact like a tightrope in tension between them.

Daryl responds to his question with a snort, a roll of his shoulders. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

“Just want to be sure,” Rick says.

“I can take care of myself,” Daryl mutters, looking down.

“I know you can,” Rick says, and he caves, a bit; puts his hand on top of Daryl's, strokes his thumb back and forth. “Doesn't mean you have to.”

“What're we doing here, Rick?” Daryl asks, looking back at him. When Rick doesn't say anything, Daryl shifts his shoulders again, looks into the space just past Rick's ear. “I don't mean, like, us. I don't... I think I get that. I dunno. But Beth...”

“What do you want to do?” Rick asks.

Daryl gives him a look. “It ain't about what I want and you know it.”

Rick frowns and is about to answer him—ask him what he means because he _doesn't_ know, he doesn't—but right before he can open his mouth he hears the bathroom doorknob begin to turn.

His and Daryl's heads snap sideways as Beth emerges, looking at them shyly before dropping something in her purse and clicking it closed. She pulls the door shut behind her and walks into the room and she's different, she's walking differently, like she's made a decision but she's hesitant about going through with it. She drops her purse beside the couch as she goes.

She's barefoot—insisted on taking her sandals off at the door even though Rick and Daryl don't give a fuck—and pads silently across the grimy carpet until she's standing in front of them a few feet away, directly under the ceiling light. Rick realizes his hand is still on Daryl's and wonders if he should move it but no one has mentioned it so far so he doesn't.

Rick clears his throat. “So, you wanna order a pizza or some–“

It reminds Rick of the time he was in a shootout, the only one of his career. He and Shane had been called to a house about a domestic disturbance. The situation was clear as soon as a woman with the beginnings of a black eye answered the door. She said nothing was going on, nothing to worry about, but Rick elbowed his way past her and–

He saw the man raising the revolver like a film played in half-time. Reaching into his waistband, clutching the grip. Pulling it free, shirt undulating as his arm rubbed across it. The hairs on his arm fluttering. The cold black eye of the muzzle, staring into Rick's face.

He heard Shane's shout a moment after Rick dove behind the sofa and the world sped up as the man shot his wife in the arm before firing towards Rick and racing away from Shane's advancing gun.

It's like that, the clarity of this moment. Beth's arms crossing in front of herself, fingers scrunching in the fabric of her dress and digging in like she's hanging onto the edge of a cliff, pulling the dress up, up, up her thighs and panties and stomach and breasts before it flies over her head and flutters like tissue paper towards the ground.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [dress](http://i.imgur.com/cFOhC9W.jpg) that Beth wore to the picnic in the last chapter, if you're curious ;)

Silence. Still, deathly silence, stretching like a rubber band as Beth's cheeks grow redder and redder. _It's not just her cheeks_ , Rick thinks, watching in something like scientific fascination as the blush spreads down her neck and along her clavicle, the wings of her collarbones standing stark against her skin's rosy white. Rosy and more as it swells into tits that could barely fill his palms but capped with nipples that stand stark and proud. Her stomach is flat and pale and her panties simple, cotton edged with lace, pink, a bow in the middle.

His eyes crawl back up her body to her face, pink and clenched even as lips part, tongue flickers. Her hands flutter at her sides and then her stomach before resting by her sides again, palms in and fingers curled.

Rick hears Daryl breathe out in a gush, and Rick remembers he needs to breathe too.

“Hi,” she whispers.

It cracks through Rick like lightning, so sharp he sucks air through his teeth, clenches his jaw like he's ripping into something. How much he wanted her in his car that afternoon, how much he wanted her before then, how many times he's gotten himself off—gotten _Daryl_ off—thinking about her. Talking about her. And she doesn't even know it.

He wonders if she guesses. He wonders if she knows that the tightness in his pants is half her, half knowing Daryl is seeing this too.

“Beth,” Daryl blurts out, choked, and Rick can feel him pushing into the back of the couch like he's trying to phase through it. “The fuck–“

Her fingers twitch but her spine stays straight. She even lifts her chin.

“I want to fuck you,” she says, clear, defined. She looks at Rick and he feels her hand on his cock again, tiny and hot. “Both of you.”

Daryl makes another choked-off noise and Rick chances a glance at him. He looks terrified—eyes wide and flickering and mouth working like he's whispering codewords. His hand is tense and ground into the couch under Rick's fingers.

Rick tightens his hand and Daryl wrenches his eyes away from Beth, looks at Rick. Whatever he sees doesn't seem to settle him.

“I know you want to,” Beth says as Rick and Daryl stare at each other, but Rick barely hears her. He knows her arguments before she says them—knows them because he's rehearsed them himself, rehearsed for this very moment, dreamt through them in the nights leading up to this day. How to coax her out of her clothes. How to pull Daryl forward and put the man's hands on her, let them explore each other until they can't stop touching and then he would–

But she beat him to it. This sweet girl.

 _This woman_ , he thinks, barely holding Daryl's gaze because he wants to look back, take in her breasts and the swell of her hips so barely covered by her underwear, no matter how conservative they are—but Daryl's the one who needs him now. Like the night when they first came together, it's Rick leading the way.

“Daryl,” Rick says softly, his lover's name curling through the air like smoke from a cigarette. “Easy.”

“You plan this or something?” Daryl hisses, too quietly for Beth to hear more than his breath through his teeth.

Rick pitches his voice loud enough for her. He thinks she deserves some part in this conversation. “No,” Rick says. Rick tightens his hand again until he feels Daryl's bones grinding together, finds sadistic glee in Daryl's gasp. “But you're saying you never thought about it?”

“You know...” Daryl trails off, glancing guiltily towards Beth before he remembers she's half-naked, flicks his gaze back to Rick's in a panic. “It wasn't... wasn't gonna happen–“

Rick cuts him off easily, leaning forward and sucking Daryl's mouth towards himself, free hand tangling in Daryl's hair and yanking him forward so he half falls into Rick's body. He catches himself with one hand high up on Rick's thigh and they both moan as Rick slides his tongue between Daryl's lips. Daryl's moans increase in pitch when Rick releases Daryl's hand so he can palm the man's cock. A jolt passes through Rick's own groin when he finds Daryl already hard and pulsing.

He pulls his face back from Daryl's, stays a hair's breadth away so Daryl can feel Rick's words on his mouth.

“It's happening,” Rick whispers. Heart pounding, he looks towards Beth.

She's staring at the two of them like she doesn't know if she wants to consume them or be consumed in turn. Practically her entire torso is red, her nipples rising and falling with her shoulders as she breathes rapidly, hands clenched into fists. As Rick watches, she pulls her eyes away from Rick's hand on Daryl's crotch, how Rick has begun kneading the hard flesh beneath, and looks at him. He knows that look. It's how she looked at him when her phone rang in the car—in the split second before she knew what it was and she scrambled out from under him, when it was still haze and lust and their hands on each other and the edge so close for both of them–

Rick swallows and drags his eyes away from her, kisses Daryl as deeply as he knows how, as deeply as Daryl will let him. When Rick pulls back Daryl's looking at Rick almost like Beth is.

“Beth,” Rick says, keeping his voice smooth, steady, unruffled, even as his cock aches at the thought of what he hopes is about to happen. “Come here.”

And she knows exactly what to do. Doesn't waste a moment in striding forward, long legs eating up ground until she's close and Rick can smell her and _smell her_ as she parts her legs, climbing onto the sofa and planting her knees on the outside of Daryl's thighs. Rick takes his hand away from Daryl's dick just as she slides forward, and she and Daryl both gasp when they make contact.

“Beth­–“

“Shhh,” Beth says, digging her knees into the gap between the cushions so she can press as far forward as possible, and when Rick sees Daryl scoot his ass towards the edge of the couch to give her room Rick knows they've won.

Beth puts her hands on the sides of Daryl's head, looking so _small_ as she angles him towards her, speaks against his mouth. “I wanna be with you,” she breathes, and Rick presses down on his own dick, groaning silently into the pressure. “But tell me, ok? If you don't wanna do this you tell me.”

Daryl is silent, hands digging into the couch cushions at his sides as he gazes at her, open and enraptured. Rick thinks she could ask Daryl to plunge a dagger into his own side right now and he'd do it without question.

“Daryl?” Beth says, moving one hand up so her fingers are sliding through Daryl's hair. She tugs gently and his eyelids flutter.

She's looking a little unsure now too—not unsure, disappointed—and she looks ready to sit back on her heels when Daryl's hand creeps up to touch her leg. It's only the outside and not even that high above the knee but Beth shudders violently, eyes half-closing as Daryl's hand drifts across her skin, her smooth, pale skin stretched over solid muscle—and by the time Daryl's fingers are pressing into her flesh, making little dimples in the sweet expanse, his mouth is open too as he leans forward and lets Beth kiss him.

Rick struggles to keep his breathing silent as he watches them, to lean forward without shifting the couch, to keep his hand off his zipper because Daryl's eyes are sliding closed and Beth's tongue is flicking out to lick at his lips and Daryl has both hands on her now, the one on her leg and the other on her back, just below where her braid ends. Rick wants Daryl to grab it, but he knows Daryl isn't ready for that, not yet; not when his whole body is trembling as Beth hums in satisfaction, kisses him again with her eyes half open and one hand sliding to his bare arm, little fingernails digging into his skin. The feeling makes Daryl jump and Beth gasps out a moan and Rick turns his eyes from their lips to see their hips pressed together tight, rocking just the slightest bit, and knowing that Beth can likely feel the shape of Daryl's hard-on against her pussy makes Rick squeeze himself to the point of pain because he isn't going off until he has a taste of this.

Their kisses are deeper now, movements more sure, and now Daryl is cupping her head, moaning into her mouth as he holds her against him with a hand on her head and one on her lower back, and lower, lower, and when Beth rocks her hips back only to grind herself forward Rick sees both of Daryl's hands tighten.

“Yes,” Beth whispers, moving her hips again, then her whole body, then practically riding Daryl through his pants as she rises and falls, sucking air in deep through her nose as he moans in turn and tries to match her rhythm, thrusting clumsily a few times before he gets it and they're rolling together, dry-humping deep and slow on the other end of the couch.

Rick is so enraptured by their movements, Beth's bare torso and her little nipples dragging against Daryl's rough shirt, that it takes him a few moments to realize she's looking at him. She's kissing Daryl but she's looking at Rick and he takes it for the invitation it is.

Daryl gasps as Beth pulls her mouth away from him and gasps again, a lower, longer sound when Rick leans in and replaces Daryl's lips with his own and he and Beth don't bother with foreplay, not now—meet each other with mouths open and tongues searching and she tastes just like Rick remembers, slightly minty like she'd just used mouthwash but just the same except for the hint of something else familiar, and when he realizing he's tasting Daryl on her lips that brings a whole host of other images to his mind and he doesn't hold back as he grabs Beth by the root of her braid so he can kiss her even harder.

She's still riding Daryl, is the thing; even as she curves a hand around Rick's cheek she's still moving against Daryl's crotch, and now that he isn't muffled by her mouth Daryl is making the most delicious noises—moans and grunts and when Rick takes a moment to peek he sees Daryl's face pressed against Beth's shoulder, eyes squeezed shut and mouth fallen open. From his expression and the coil of his body and the way he's clinging to Beth for dear life Rick knows that Daryl's close, will come in his pants any moment, and so with some regret Rick presses down on Beth's leg, stilling her movements as he pulls his mouth away from hers, but never moving far; lingering so their lips brush together and her face blurs in front of him, anchored there by his hand in her hair.

“Easy, girl,” Rick says, smiling and looking at Daryl, his own face so close, “You want more of us than this, right?”

“Yeah,” she breathes. She looks a little alarmed, like she didn't expect any of it to get this far, and that sends a zing up Rick's spine that he doesn't want to think about—and he doesn't. Brings his hand down from where he'd braced it on Daryl's arm and slides it between Beth and Daryl's bodies, the tiny gap that's appeared as they talked, and he doesn't bother keeping his knuckles clear of Daryl's dick as he curls his hand around Beth's pussy. She jumps, then immediately after presses into him; she's braced on Daryl's chest and Rick sees her fingers curl as his own do, cupping the entirety of her lips and mons in one hand, his own breath stuttering a little at what he feels.

“Fuck, you're wet,” Rick breathes, feeling the stain on her panties stretching nearly the length of his palm. He curls his middle finger and draws it back, pressing in between her lips, and Beth's mouth drops open, panting silently. Rick watches her face as he presses the soaked fabric of her panties into her entrance, teases the heel of his palm against her clit. She's trying so hard to hold it together, poor thing, to let him do what he wants so she can please him—that's what he thinks, anyway. It makes him feel some sort of something to think that, watching her hands shake and thighs clench as she fights not to move.

Rick doesn't want that. He wants her screaming and writhing and grabbing and begging, oh _god_ he wants her begging, begging like he's got a fucking gun in his hand and the only way to get it out of her face is to orgasm around his fingers. He got her so close last time, _god_ , she'd begun to pulse when the phone went off, and he decides that whatever else happens tonight he's going to make her come into his hand.

Now isn't the time though. It's too early for coming, even though Rick can tell from the pressure on the back of his hand that Daryl is ready to go off any moment. But Rick won't let him. He's come to know the signs of Daryl's impending orgasms, knows when to ease off at just the moment that will force the other man beyond reason and inhibition, send him grabbing and groaning in a way he never would otherwise.

Rick wonders sometimes where he learned this control; he'd done some gentle edge-play with Lori but never took it too far, was worried she wouldn't like it so he didn't try—but he wants to try. He doesn't want to be gentle and loving and devoted. He did it that way for a decade and still she left. And he wonders if, if he'd pushed her more often, if maybe that would have gotten her to stay.

He snaps back to the present when he feels Beth begin to hump against his hand, whimpering under her breath, eyes dark and hooded.

“Rick–“

“Daryl,” Rick says, rubbing up and down her pussy a few times before looking at Daryl, finding Daryl's eyes searing into the actions of Rick's hand, the fabric and all else underneath. He repeats Daryl's name and Daryl looks up at him and Rick kisses him as a reward, a short wet smack that Daryl chases when Rick pulls away, wanting more. Rick doesn't kiss him again, but he does lean his forehead against Daryl's; looks into his eyes, and then down to Beth in her panties where she sits almost on top of Daryl's erection. Rick flicks his eyes up to Daryl to make sure he's looking, then without preamble takes hold of Beth's panties and pulls them to the side.

Beth gasps with something like a squeal at the end, her fingers now sunk in Daryl's shirt as she looks down with the two of them, chest heaving and Rick just has to bring up his free hand and cup her tiny tit. Beth tears her eyes away from her own pussy, looks at Rick's hand and then Rick himself, then gasps again when Rick flicks a thumbnail across her nipple.

“Touch her, Daryl,” Rick murmurs, leaning forward to kiss Beth's temple, the corner of her open mouth. “You ever touch a woman like this? Touch her.”

Rick hardly knows what he's saying, will parse it out later—he knows Daryl's fucked women, but not if he's touched them, seen their pussies laid out for him and taken them the fuck apart with nothing but his hand, his fingers—but Rick's lips are on Beth's jaw when she moans, deep and throaty and encouraging, and when Rick looks down he sees Daryl's done what he asked: is touching her with the pad of his thumb, just his thumb, tracing down one open lip and then the other, gliding easily through her wet. The pull of her panties has one lip stretched taut, the other spread with her leg around Daryl's lap, and they can see everything—the flaps of her inner lips, how tiny she is, how much she'll have to stretch to fit either of them, her clit standing thick and swollen atop it all—and Beth collapses forward, pressing her mouth into Daryl's neck and kissing him almost mindlessly, like she needs something to keep her grounded.

“Touch me, Daryl, _please_ ,” she whispers into his skin, and Rick sees the surprised arousal in Daryl's face when she bites down as he brings the rest of his hand against her, petting her insides like he would a cat, unsure but seeming to like when he feels, and Rick decides to take pity on them because the sooner they get past this the sooner they can get their clothes off and it won't feel like his underpants are about to scrape the skin off his fucking cock.

Rick moves his mouth to Daryl, kissing the side of his neck that Beth's neglecting, working upwards with nips and sucks until he reaches Daryl's ear, twists his tongue around the folds before pressing his lips against it and speaking.

“You're doing so good, Daryl,” he whispers, looking at Beth's spread pussy, almost moaning himself when he sees the muscles of her cunt flutter. Daryl's back to just a few fingers working through her folds, and as he nudges her clit Rick _feels_ Beth's moan as it ripples through Daryl's throat between them. “That's it, her clit, her little clitty, isn't it cute–“ Daryl nudges it again and Beth's hips jerk, turning her pussy so it's pointed farther upwards, easier to touch, easier to– “Get inside her, Daryl,” Rick whispers, knowing Beth hears, making sure she hears. “Fuck her with your finger, go on. You want that, don't you Beth?”

“Yes,” she says in a long drawn out moan, deepening into a groan as Daryl prods uncertainly at her entrance, finger clumsy and searching, and Rick kisses his cheek before moving his hand from Beth's breast and taking Daryl's wrist, _guiding him_ , watching and panting as Daryl's thick finger finally catches and slides inside to the first knuckle.

Daryl gasps and Beth moans and Rick almost laughs, laughs with delight, because he realizes that Daryl really has never played with a woman before, and that they get to play with this one–

“Is that–, that ok, Beth?”

“God, yes,” she says, dragging herself off Daryl's neck and falling into his mouth, kissing him and shoving her hips forward, simultaneously pushing Daryl's finger deeper inside her and pressing against his trapped cock. Daryl lets out a long groan that Rick recognizes, he recognizes from the times they've been together and he's touched Daryl just right, and he has to touch him now, feel him, and he reaches out to yank Daryl's hand off Beth's back and place it on Rick's own straining cock.

He almost loses hold of Beth's panties at this feeling that's becoming familiar, becoming easier—and he knows how far they've come when Daryl doesn't miss a beat in the transition, finds the shape of Rick's dick with ease and squeezes down until Rick sees stars.

Rick leaves Daryl to his own devices and puts his own hand on Beth's back, shudders a little at the warm expanse of it, the light dusting of hairs at the base of her spine, the top of her ass, that gorgeous ass with her panties riding low and Rick realizes that he's getting impatient—Daryl's hand working up and down Rick's cock and Beth and Daryl's moans and the smacking sounds coming from Daryl's finger in her cunt, how gorgeous the two of them look with beads of sweat springing up like poppies on their necks and throats—Rick lets go of Beth's ass and brings it around, pressing it between Beth and Daryl's moving bodies to find her clit, her swollen clit that she'd been grinding against Daryl's jeans but that Rick now has in his hand.

Beth gasps, her movements stuttering as she rips her mouth away from Daryl's to look down at herself, Rick's two hands and Daryl's one looking enormous, monstrous against her tiny body; and it's only when she looks up to meet Rick's eyes that he takes his first two fingers and presses down hard, setting up a fast circling rhythm that has Beth's lips dropping open and her hips working even faster. Rick leans forward and Beth readies to meet the kiss but Rick stops just short, his mouth open against hers as they breathe each other's air, the harsh pants building speed.

“You're gonna come this time,” Rick says into her mouth, just managing to keep from stuttering when her tongue darts out to lick at his lower lip. He squeezes her clit between his fingers in retaliation, stretches her panties further and he can't believe they haven't torn yet. His eyes are open and hers are too and she looks on the edge of ecstasy. “You're gonna come, darling, alright, you ready? You're gonna come and then we're gonna fuck you, both of us. You want that sweetling, yeah? You want us to fuck you? Want our cocks?”

“Yes,” Beth whispers, a sob beneath the syllable that makes Rick's dick jump under Daryl's hand, the scent of her helpless edge. She's tumbling towards it, he can feel it, knows Daryl can too, and Rick'll want to torture her, god he'll torture her so good, but now he wants to see her come—see the end of what they began in the car, her eyes squeezing shut and her mouth falling open and blood shooting through her already flushed cheek as her whole body seizes—

Daryl gasps, and Rick looks down to see him pulling his finger from Beth's body, the liquid that leaks out in its wake. The entire front of Daryl's jeans are soaked, from Beth and from him, and as Rick pulls his hand from Beth's over-sensitized clit he presses into Daryl's bulge, meets the other man's eyes as he reciprocates, says nothing as he drops forward, forehead against Daryl's as they share this moment, this moment of triumph.

Rick feels Beth's panting breath against his throat; she's collapsed into Daryl too, cheek against his chest as she fights to get her breath back. Rick waits, patiently, he thinks, for her to gather herself; when her breathing begins to even he pulls himself away from Daryl to look down at her, finally release her panties and rub his damp fingers across her tit, her cheek and trembling lips. She closes her eyes and opens her mouth and his cock pounds _hard_ as she takes his fingers—two of them, slick with her, resting on her tongue in the wet vacuum of her mouth.

“You aren't done yet,” he murmurs, and he thinks the shiver that runs through Beth and Daryl's bodies belongs to both of them.

She opens her eyes and opens her mouth, lets Rick's fingers slide from her tongue before she swallows, looks down at Daryl's hand on Rick's crotch.

She swallows again, and moves her hand to join it, covering Daryl's knuckles and pressing down with her tiny fingers, making both of them hiss.

“Good,” she whispers, and with the taste of both of them on her breath kisses Rick's ready, waiting lips.

* * *

Rick opens his eyes to the familiar sight of his bedroom ceiling in the dark—the beam that runs across it right at the edge of his vision, the terra cotta texture creating shadows like pits in sand. He blinks for a few moments, stretches his neck left then right, feels a burn in his hamstrings he isn't accustomed to. It's when he's reaching down to massage his thigh and his hand brushes a cooling wet spot on the sheets that he remembers.

He looks to the side and sees Daryl. Asleep, fast asleep, his quiet snores filling the air between them. He's still in his shirt as he usually is, but Rick knows he's bare underneath. Usually that bareness would be pressed to Rick's hip, smooth and soft amidst the coarseness of his pubic hair. But there's a space between them that isn't usually there and it's still cooling.

Rick's head jerks up when he hears it: something bumping in the living room, a quiet curse. Rick glances at Daryl, still sound asleep, and his mouth twitches—Daryl'd need to be particularly worn out for that sound not to wake him. But he snores on, oblivious, snuggling his face deeper into the pillow and letting out a deep sigh.

Rick's breath catches in his chest. Even in the dark with his striking eyes closed, Daryl is beautiful. More beautiful, maybe, for how relaxed he is, face muscles gone slack and fingers twitching.

Rick doesn't know if he's ever thought that about Daryl before. Not about any man, any boy. It wan't in his vocabulary.

Beautiful.

Rick brushes Daryl's hair back from his face before rolling off the bed as quietly as he can, groping for a pair of jeans in the dark before pulling them on and leaving the bedroom.

There's a streetlight directly outside the window in the living room, and he can see much more easily here; hones in quickly on Beth's frozen form where she stands by the door, wearing her dress and halfway into one of her sandals.

They stare at each other silently for several long moments before Beth looks down, continues buckling her sandal before putting on the other. Only then does she stand and face him again. Rick crosses his arms and leans back against the wall.

“Did we say you could leave?” he asks, pitching his voice low. He raises the corner of his mouth so she knows he's joking, but maybe it's darker where he's standing; she swallows and looks at her feet, adjusts her purse on her shoulder.

“Just thought it'd be better,” she says, just as soft, her voice slipping though the room like summer wind. “You didn't say I could stay, so–“

“You can stay,” Rick interrupts. Beth pauses, seemingly unsure. Rick smiles with both sides of his mouth, hoping she doesn't miss it. “Only if you want to, though.”

“I...” Beth begins, but trails off. She swallows again, then takes a few steps towards Rick so they aren't whispering at each other from across the room.

“Yeah?” he asks.

She pauses, then continues forward again until she's within his reach. He doesn't hesitate to raises his hands and lightly grip her bare arms; rub them up and down, feel the goosebumps erupting on her skin.

“I do,” she says. “Want to.” She sways back and forth on the balls of her feet, almost like she wants to rock into Rick's chest. “But I just... I've never done this before.”

“Being with two people–“

“Not that,” Beth says, then rushes to say, “Not that I've done that... either.” She's smiling, smiling at him in the dark, and his own smile continues as he looks at her shape and shadows. “It was... it was good. Really good.” Rick chuckles and her forehead wrinkles, hand reaching out to smack against his chest. It doesn't even make a sound. “Shut up. I don't mean that. Not... _just_ that.”

“What else, then?” Rick asks, looking at his hand on her arm, shaping his palm to her shoulder.

“Everything,” she whispers. He meets her eyes, sees them large and luminous. “I've had boyfriends. Not many. A few. But it's never been like this.”

Rick's hand follows the path it wants; slides down her back and brings her closer so he can feel the tendrils of her breath on his cheeks. “Like what?”

Beth searches his face and Rick feels his smile fade. He has the strangest feeling that she's seeing more than he would in the mirror.

“This,” she says, meaningful, like he should know­–

His breath catches in his chest.

_Beautiful._

He does.

“I don't wanna... I have to be on my own. I have to think.”

“Alright,” Rick says. “But we'll see you again. Right?”

Beth blinks at him, then a smile crawls up the side of her mouth too.

“I dunno,” she says, takes another step closer and she's there, warm body pushed against his bare chest and all down his front, pressing into his half-fastened jeans. “You want to?”

Rick shrugs, drifting his hand across her ass and grinning when she shivers. She smacks his chest again but leaves her hand there this time, spreads her fingers against his skin. Not to push him away, but like her mere touch, fingers not even hooked, could pull him closer.

She stretches up on her tip-toes so her mouth comes level with his. Doesn't kiss him, not quite; but her closeness lets him know she could.

“I'll be around,” she says, each syllable written on his lips.

“We'll be here,” Rick says. He puts both hands on the small of her back; rubs like a massage, pushing her into his building hard-on. Neither of them expect her to take care of it, but it makes her smile to feel it. He thinks that's why she smiles, why she drops her weight into his chest and kisses him, long and slow and deep. When she pulls away she's flushed down to her chest; even in the dark Rick can tell, and it makes every cell in his body yearn to drag her back to bed so they can have her again. Riding Rick this time, maybe; turning around for Daryl, resting her cheek on her crossed arms as he spreads her legs and takes her from behind, Rick lying so she can just reach his cock with her mouth, lick it clean while he tangles his fingers in her hair. Not to force her onto his dick, although that could come later; just to feel how soft her hair is, how it shifts as Daryl pushes into her and pulls himself back. Letting go when Daryl's thrusts grow more erratic, slipping his fingers between her legs instead as she suckles at his cock like a lifeline, like the only thing tethering her to Earth as she comes apart...

There's so much they haven't done.

He knows she can feel how hard he's gotten, and she looks almost sympathetic when she drops back to her heels and steps away, keeps her eyes on him as long as she can as she turns and bends down to pick up her picnic basket.

“You want a ride home?” Rick asks.

“I already called a cab,” she says, standing back up and facing him. “Should be here any minute.”

“Alright,” Rick says, sticking his hands in his front pockets. “I'll let you go, then.”

“Don't.”

He doesn't think she planned to say that out loud.

He thinks of Lori suddenly; about their marriage vows, saying them on a cloudless day in June at the edge of a lake, their families seated before them. He found the paper he'd written his on when he was cleaning his things out of the house. He almost left it on their bed (Lori's bed) but put it back in the drawer instead.

Beth is still looking at him; waiting for a reaction, a brush-off, something. And Rick finds himself choked.

_This girl._

“I won't, then,” he says. “We won't.”

“Ok,” she whispers. She stares at him for one more awkward moment, then turns and opens the apartment door and leaves.

Rick stands at the window until he sees her get in the cab, watches until it's too far down the street to see. He breathes out against the window glass; a little shaky, but together. He's together.

Daryl is waiting when he gets back to the bedroom. Doesn't say anything as Rick kicks off his jeans and slips back beneath the sheets, but Rick can see his eyes gleaming in the dark, watching him move. Once he's settled Daryl, as Rick expects him to, snuggles in close; tucks his head under Rick's chin, his cheek on Rick's chest.

“She's ok?” Daryl asks.

“Yeah,” Rick says, threading his fingers through Daryl's hair so he can scratch at his scalp, pull his head back so he can reach his forehead with a kiss. “Just needs some time.” Rick pauses, then chuckles, mouth still pressed against Daryl's skin. “Gave her a lot to take, didn't we?”

Daryl snorts. His breath is deep and even like he's falling back asleep, but his hand is restless; moves up and down Rick's ribs, hooks around his side, drifts back towards his sternum.

When Daryl speaks, his voice is small.

“She's coming back, though?”

“Yeah,” Rick says. “Yeah, she is.”

“Good,” Daryl whispers.

Daryl sighs, re-settles himself; Rick rests his hand more comfortably on Daryl's back, wonders how many scars he's touching beneath the shirt. He wonders for so long that when he turns his attention back to Daryl, Daryl really is asleep. Rick looks down at him, then to his own side, the empty foot or so of mattress. It's only a full and they're two grown men, but the bed's never felt so empty before.

 _We'll fix that_ , Rick thinks as he closes his eyes, breathes in deeply; smells Daryl next to him, the traces of her still tangled in the air. In his mind he reaches out with grasping fingers, pulls the tendrils in. Holds them close, like Daryl holds him.

_We'll fix it._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know some of you might be mad at me for that fade to black, but I tried to write the consummation scene and I just couldn't get it to feel right. Hopefully the rest is satisfying enough :)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and please remember to review <3


	10. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look into Beth's head on the morning after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been needing to write more in this universe and this came out. I hope it makes for a nice addition :)

Beth lets herself into her apartment, not bothering to worry about the door slamming behind her. Ten to one Katie slept at her boyfriend's last night. Beth keeps waiting for the day when her roommate comes up to her and says she's moving out, but it hasn't happened yet, which suits Beth fine. Katie pays her half of the rent and utilities and Beth gets an apartment to herself.

It feels strangely empty now, though, but not because Katie isn't here. It isn't because of Katie at all.

Beth goes to her bedroom, closes the door, drops her purse and the picnic basket and strips out of her clothes. She ignores the open blinds; the trees in the measly backyard are enough to provide some cover but even if they didn't, she couldn't be bothered. She goes to her full-length mirror and takes herself in.

She sees what she always sees: a slim boyish torso and softly rounded hips, long legs and sharp hipbones framing a triangle of public hair that she trims when she feels like it, and she hasn't felt like it. She knows Maggie would be aghast to know that Beth went on a date without shaving, but Rick seemed to like it when he felt it in his car and she thought it would make her look older, maybe, when she took her clothes off for two older men.

It was always her intention to fuck them after that picnic. Or to at least try. She'd lain awake at night ever since making the plans with Rick, trying to figure out the best way to do it. Rick wanted her, she knew that; would have taken her right there in his car if Maggie hadn't had such wonderful timing. Daryl she wasn't so sure of. But instinct told her, and instinct was right, that with both she and Rick goading him into it he'd have nowhere left to turn.

Beth winces, touching a deep purple bruise on her neck with the tip of a finger. They didn't force Daryl to do what they did. She never would have slept with him if she thought he didn't want it, and she has a feeling that Rick wouldn't have let her do it either. Daryl might have been shy at first, but he was willing; _god he was willing_ , Beth thinks, watching in mild fascination as the flush spreads from her cheeks to her chest, fills her nipples with blood.

She remembers sitting on top of Daryl, something she's never done before (she's never done most of this before), wiggling around to get herself seated right and him not even waiting, surging up and dragging her down until he could reach her breast with his mouth. How she'd cried out and Rick had growled, kissing up and down her spine while Daryl sucked and bit and she rode, eventually pulling out of the reach of Daryl's mouth to throw her head back, feel Rick's hand insistent in her hair as he dragged her around and kissed her–

Beth shivers, biting at her still-swollen lips. She's never been kissed like that. Kissed like either of them kissed her, although they were so different; Rick deep and demanding and Daryl desperate, kissing her like he was in a fight for his life and only her lips could save him.

She doesn't want to wax poetic about this, though, about any of this. She thinks this... this situation, this _relationship_ , might be the realest thing she's known in her entire life. And she's only been with them one night.

Beth shivers again, leaving her bedroom and climbing into the shower. She doesn't have anything to do today besides studying. She could leave their scent on her; feel their sweat mingling with hers, their saliva leaving snake-trails across her skin. But she shouldn't be distracted. She should study. Go to the campus cafe with her $300 textbook and keep taking notes, line by line, cups of tea disappearing before her.

She wonders what it would be like to study at their place. She thinks it would be nice. She knows from their picnic that she doesn't always need to be talking with them. She enjoyed it, getting to know them, talking and watching their faces change as they listened to her, but she liked it even more when words fell away and the sounds of the park filtered in: children playing and dogs barking and the wind moving through the trees and the two of them there with her, just there, sharing the food she'd brought and casting glances like each of them was waiting for one of the others to break. Run for the hills. Daryl had tried that but Beth stopped him. She can still hardly believe that was her, standing on her toes and kissing him in front of the man who'd had his hand in her pussy, who for all intents and purposes had already claimed her—but they'd been kissing too. She found them on the bench with their tongues down each other's throats and Rick hadn't seemed embarrassed at all. Looked more like the cat who got the cream, licking Daryl's taste from his lips and looking her up and down like he wanted to taste her then and there too.

Beth turns her face into the spray, the day warm enough that the hot water is barely even on and the cool stream sluices soothingly across her skin. She follows its tracks, running her hands down her torso and thighs, dipping briefly into her pussy and jerking away, still too sensitive to touch herself without the ironclad determination to finish.

She wonders what it would have been like if she had stayed. Woken up between the two of them with the sun in the sky, all three of them dripping with sweat but not caring as they moved closer together. She would kiss Daryl's chest; Rick would kiss her shoulder; Daryl would wrap a large hand around her hip, fingers pressing at her ass to bring her closer, chest rumbling as her legs spread without prompting, eagerly finding friction against his thigh. Rick doing the same behind her, his hard and quickly dripping cock burning a line into her lower spine and she wouldn't know what to do; to turn her head and kiss Rick or move up to straddle Daryl again or spread her legs further and invite Rick to slip in from behind even as she worked her clit on Daryl's leg. So many possibilities the thought of it makes her dizzy; makes her thankful for how Rick took charge last night, telling her and Daryl what to do and how he wanted them and how good they were, both of them. The praise made Beth hot but Daryl seemed _destroyed_ ; she listened to him make noises she didn't even know a man could _make_ in bed, and she loved every moment. Rick seemed to love it too. They spent most of their time focused on her (and selfish girl that she is, she did nothing to dissuade them), but there were moments when Daryl and Rick became lost in each other; Rick murmuring praise and Daryl groaning like a wounded animal as he kissed Rick with the same desperation as when he kissed her, hand folding clumsily around Rick's cock...

His cock, both of theirs, _fuck._ Despite being sexually attracted to men Beth has never found the male organ especially interesting, certainly not attractive; not until theirs. That's when she knew she was in trouble; when Rick slipped off his boxer briefs and she _wanted her mouth on him_ , when Daryl followed and she wanted the same thing, wanted both of them at once, licking at their tips and gathering them together so she could fit them both in her mouth at once, smear their mixed pre-cum across her face for them to lick off later; Rick's hand in her hair and then Daryl's hand too, working her up and down on their shafts, trading her between them until the world spun and she forgot who was who, knowing only how _good_ it felt to have her mouth filled like that, a second and a third heartbeat pounding on her tongue, swelling and stiffening until she sucked them dry...

Beth drags in a ragged breath, collapsing against the shower wall and pulling her hand from between her legs, holding it shaking into the spray to watch the glistening strands of herself get swept away.

She doesn't know what time it is when she stumbles out of the shower, only that at some point during her time in the bathroom the sun has risen. She pulls on a tank-top and sweats without much thought, running on the autopilot of her usual routine. Get up. Shower. Go to the cafe or the library to crank out a few chapters. Call Daddy or Maggie. Take a nap. Do it all again. Make herself an omelet for dinner and fall into bed to prepare for what the next week might bring.

She pauses as she's about to head out the door, though. Her phone is in her hand, ready to be shoved in her bag when it vibrates. She doesn't even think; clicks it on and looks at the text that came in moments ago.

> **RG: next wknd?**

A smile crawls across Beth's face, and she barely holds in an embarrassing little giggle. She's becoming that girl now. She's become that girl.

She types her reply with rapid, steady fingers.

> **BG: or sooner ;)**

Beth puts her phone in her bag before Rick can reply. Jogs down the stairs and opens the building door into the fresh morning air. It wasn't all that long ago that she stood on this porch with a bloodstained knife, staring a deputy sheriff in the eyes.

 _Good girl_ , he said when she gave him the weapon. _Good girl_.

She stretches her legs where the night's activities have pulled them tight. Doesn't bother pushing the smile from her face, even though it probably makes her look like a hooligan.

It doesn't matter. It's gonna be good. From now on, everything's gonna be good.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please review!!! <3


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